Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2019 16:47:59 -0700
Reply-To: Mark Belanger <mbelanger@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Mark Belanger <mbelanger@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Friday: Off Topic on Spam
In-Reply-To: <20190426130138.7379ea590be25b0275efc78b@5by9.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
I disagree. As a savvy Unix guy, I used to run my own email server, until I
realized that the corpus of SPAM data organizations like Google and
Microsoft can aggregate were orders of magnitude greater than I could ever
hope to achieve for training my local SPAM Assassin deployment. I switched
over to Gmail and have been quite happy ever since. The service catches
about 50-75 SPAM messages per day with 1-2 false positives and 5-10 false
negatives per week. I peruse the SPAM folder (sorted by subject), once a
day.
I also reject your machinations linking spammers to spam blockers. By your
logic the phone companies are directly connected with robocallers and mice
are behind the mousetrap industry. First, there are numerous free
solutions, including the aforementioned SPAM Assassin, for combating SPAM.
Google is your friend. Second, you need to understand the origins of email
to understand why it is so easy to abuse. Email protocols were designed by
a bunch of academics in the late 60s and early 70s when the Internet was
limited to universities and government. They were designed for ease of use,
not security. The upside is that billions of people have been able to
trivially get email. The downside is that billions of people, including bad
actors, have been able to trivially get email.
Of course, you can and will DIY your email, but for the vast majority of
users, it is far easier to go with a commercial solution. Provided you stay
away from lousy services like AOL, Yahoo or Hotmail, it's not that bad and
if it is, it's time to get a new email address.
FWIW,
MB
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 1:02 PM Michael A. Radtke <wa7zpu@5by9.net> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> The spammers are winning and have even created an industry that sell
> products to block or delete spam. In my opinion our focus should have
> been on identifying and stopping the spammers, not blocking their
> messages. No spam filter can ever work. It's like "whack a mole" in
> that what ever we do, some spam gets through. But, the worst side
> effect is that there are plenty of false positives such as vanagon list
> messages ending up in a spam folder, or worse, just deleted.
>
> Over the years, I have had numerous problems with email providers
> "helping me" by keeping spam out of my inbox. From time to time this
> has caused me various levels of inconvenience, and it even cost me
> money on occasion. I don't know how businesses can tolerate spam
> filters and blockers if they do business by email. What if a customer
> places an order by email and the business never sees it? This is not a
> theory. Recently one of Amazon's servers IP was erroneously or
> maliciously added to some blacklists. Any mail from the affected
> server was deleted by the email providers who use those blacklists.
> Almost all email providers use blacklists.
>
> I am perfectly happy to press the delete key. I don't want someone
> deciding what email I can see. I have fought this battle for years and
> just like Hillary, I now run my own email server. I see all of my
> vanagon mail even if gerry gets blacklisted, or one of you in
> frustration, includes a forbidden word in your vanagon list posting.
>
> Thanks for listening,
> Mike
>
--
________________________________________________________________________
Mark Belanger - mbelanger@gmail.com
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