[Hidden-tech] An Idea about Email

[Robert Heller]

At Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:40:46 -0400 Shel Horowitz <shel at frugalfun.com> wrote:

> 
>    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>    ** If you did, we all thank you.
> 
> 
> At 7:24 AM -0400 8/26/08, Brian Johnson wrote:
> >    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
> >    ** If you did, we all thank you.
> >
> >ussailis at shaysnet.com wrote:
> >>  Here's an idea.
> >>
> >>  Since I have become the owner of Shaysnet, I have had a chance to look at a
> >>  lot of spam. What I have observed is many of my users get the same stuff.
> >>  So, couldn't there be a program that says "if X users (let X be some
> >>  reasonable number like 4) get the same mail, it is spam, therefore deal
> >>  with it"
> >>  
> >
> >This will break mailing lists (like this one) because they send the
> >exact same message to many people, and it wont do much against spam.
> >Most spam will have some parts that are randomized each time to thwart
> >this type of prevention.
> 
> 
> I agree with Brian. I have a number of people who have requested that 
> I send them humor or political alerts, way more than four--plus I 
> have thousands of subscribers on my various double-opt-in 
> newsletters, though those are handled by a service. Even if you 
> whitelisted the big newsletter services, people like me who are not 
> spamming but who send a lot of mail will not be happy. Spam is a 
> scourge, but so many of the cures are worse than the disease. It's 
> really a challenge. I've shown up on a blacklist for friends and 
> family, just because their providers didn't like my webhost. Imagine 
> trying to email your own mother and being told it was blocked for 
> spam. Yet somehow all the bodypart and pharma junk gets through.
> 
> And I find certain of the largest cable providers apparently filter 
> on some terms related to progressive politics. There's got to be a 
> way to control spam without censoring the real stuff, but it doesn't 
> seem to have been developed yet.

Spamassassin seems to work well for me.  I do filter heavily against
HTML E-Mail -- that seems to be a fairly good indicator (yes it means I
need to whitelist people who send HTML E-Mail).


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