MESSAGE
| DATE | 2010-02-26 |
| FROM | Ron Guerin
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] this should not get through
|
Ruben Safir wrote:
>
> I'm sorry, I missunderstood you. Your saying that the mbox client, for
> lack of a better term, creates the From line in the mbox format from the
> envelope, and that it isn't strictly a header?
>
> I think your right about that. I seem to remember reading that.
>
> That is a problem though. I can spoof any From: header with mutt in a
> second and so can any spammer. How the heck can you protect the mailing
> list?
>
You can spoof the entire contents of an email including the envelope.
Nothing new there. I don't know much about Majordomo, but unless it has
native anti-abuse features or a plugin architecture to add them
yourself, this is all beside the point. By the time the message gets to
Majordomo, the question of whether or not to accept it has already been
made. You need to insert something in front of it, just like I'm
finding myself doing with GNU Mailman.
GNU Mailman happens to have a very nice integrated feature for dealing
with list spam. But it doesn't apply that to mail that's just "passing
through" to the administrative addresses. So in order to spare myself
and everyone else who looks after the list from all the spam that tries
to get sent to those addresses, I have to intercept the mail before it
hits Mailman. That's what you're going to have to do as well in the
absense of any internal anti-abuse functionality in Majordomo.
But for the sake of completeness, I'm now going to reverse gears and
assume that Majordomo does have internal anti-abuse features. If it
does, and all it bases its decisions on is who the mail appears to be
from, it's never going to be very useful because that's really the least
useful thing for determining what's spam and what's not. Trust no one,
analyze everything. Spam is still spam even when your mother sends it
to you.
- Ron
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