Stoping porn spam in Mozilla mailing lists
Nelson Bolyard
It's time for Mozilla governors to set out a policy that Mozilla operations
MUST follow, that will absolutely stop and prevent porn spam from being
sent to subscribers to Mozilla's mailing lists.
iwan...@0.2773974nowathome.com wrote, On 2009-04-03 22:55:
> 0.8821881 See This Now ... 0.2773974
>
> 0.4508898 Now Visit http://nowclickhere.bravehost.com/index.html 0.102451
This message was posted from google groups in every mozilla newsgroup,
including this one. It went to every subscriber to every Mozilla mailing
list for which a news->mail gateway exists, regardless of any spam filtering
that might have been in place to prevent it.
Because of the way that Mozilla's mail<->news gateway works, all messages
that are posted to newsgroups go straight to the mailing lists, without
any filtration whatsoever. The mailman list server provides lots of
filtration capabilities for messages that originate as emails to the lists,
but for messages that come through the news->mail gateway, there is no
filtration whatsoever.
This absolutely must stop, now. Not next year. Not after we have 100%
turnover in operations staff. Now.
It's not good enough that they can erase such spam from the newsgroup
servers after the fact. The issue is the mailing lists.
I have taken steps in the past to stop that spam from being sent to the
Mozilla mailing lists that I supposedly moderate. The only effective
step, given the limitations of mozilla's mailman server, is to stop the
flow of all messages in the news->mail direction. (There is NO OTHER
solution. There are NO FILTERS that have any effect on messages that
go from news->mail through the gateway. It's all or nothing.)
I have been told my individual members of Mozilla's operations staff that
it is unacceptable to stop that spam, and that it is more important to
keep the flow of news->mail open than to stop porn spam.
It's time for Mozilla's governors to restore some sense to this facility.
Somebody at MoFo/MoCo better ensure this is stopped before kiddy porn gets
sent to Mozilla's mailing lists.
Eddy Nigg
> It's time for Mozilla's governors to restore some sense to this facility.
> Somebody at MoFo/MoCo better ensure this is stopped before kiddy porn gets
> sent to Mozilla's mailing lists.
>
I'm glad that the news->mail keeps up, I hate to subscribe to mailing
lists. Incidentally does anybody know why Thunderbird doesn't have spam
filter capabilities for the newsreader? Well, I should ask that at the
TB list I guess...
--
Regards
Signer: Eddy Nigg, StartCom Ltd.
Jabber: star...@startcom.org
Blog: https://blog.startcom.org
Kent James
> On 04/05/2009 12:19 AM, Nelson Bolyard:
>
> filter capabilities for the newsreader? Well, I should ask that at the
> TB list I guess...
>
supports this, but there is no UI. The "why" though is partly that junk
processing requires downloading the entire message, which is not normal
practice for news.
rkent
Eddy Nigg
Thank you! Follow up on m.d.a.tb.
L. David Baron
> It's time for Mozilla governors to set out a policy that Mozilla operations
> MUST follow, that will absolutely stop and prevent porn spam from being
> sent to subscribers to Mozilla's mailing lists.
It sounds like you're saying that you want this to stop, no matter
how much the mechanisms needed to stop it hinder communication
within the Mozilla project.
I think keeping our communication mechanisms open and easy to use is
important, and I think tradeoffs need to be considered carefully,
rather than treating stopping certain types of spam as an absolute
requirement at the expense of all others.
-David
--
L. David Baron http://dbaron.org/
Mozilla Corporation http://www.mozilla.com/
Eddy Nigg
> I think keeping our communication mechanisms open and easy to use is
> important, and I think tradeoffs need to be considered carefully,
> rather than treating stopping certain types of spam as an absolute
> requirement at the expense of all others.
>
Agreed. At the most posting *from* Gmail could be disabled for some
time, without disabling Google archives nor the news -> mail gateway.
Also some spam capabilities might be available for the news server (and
maybe even exists already). Thanks again for keeping Usenet running.
Gervase Markham
On 04/04/09 22:19, Nelson Bolyard wrote:
> This message was posted from google groups in every mozilla newsgroup,
> including this one. It went to every subscriber to every Mozilla mailing
> list for which a news->mail gateway exists, regardless of any spam filtering
> that might have been in place to prevent it.
I read via news, and I have seen only two bits of spam in this
particular group this year, neither of them porn. I wonder if that means
that there is some filtering on the Google Groups -> NNTP path? Or is it
just that it got deleted before my newsreader read the group? I notice
the two bits of spam I *can* see are now "article expired".
> Because of the way that Mozilla's mail<->news gateway works, all messages
> that are posted to newsgroups go straight to the mailing lists, without
> any filtration whatsoever. The mailman list server provides lots of
> filtration capabilities for messages that originate as emails to the lists,
> but for messages that come through the news->mail gateway, there is no
> filtration whatsoever.
This is a limitation of mailman?
> I have taken steps in the past to stop that spam from being sent to the
> Mozilla mailing lists that I supposedly moderate. The only effective
> step, given the limitations of mozilla's mailman server, is to stop the
> flow of all messages in the news->mail direction. (There is NO OTHER
> solution. There are NO FILTERS that have any effect on messages that
> go from news->mail through the gateway. It's all or nothing.)
>
> I have been told my individual members of Mozilla's operations staff that
> it is unacceptable to stop that spam, and that it is more important to
> keep the flow of news->mail open than to stop porn spam.
I certainly think it's true that whatever access mechanisms we have for
Mozilla discussion groups, there must be no hidden restrictions on where
your posted message ends up based on what other system the reader is
using. To give a hypothetical example, it would be unacceptable for a
message to be posted to a mailing list and to reach people reading via
news but not via an official RSS feed (which we don't have),
particularly if the poster was not aware that his message had not had
full distribution.
The difficulty is that there are different sets of people who prefer
SMTP, NNTP and HTTP methods of getting both read and write access to
this content, and we need to support them all. Each group contains a
significant number of people. Cutting one group off entirely, or forcing
them to read-only, is not an acceptable solution.
I would also make the point that, sad though it is, almost everyone who
is involved in the Mozilla community will have an incoming spam problem
of some sort, including porn spam. For me, my ISP, greylisting and
Thunderbird work together to keep it to a pretty low level, and the only
time I have to read even the titles of porn spam is when I clean out my
filter folder every couple of weeks. Given the misery other people with
worse tools suffer, I consider myself to get off lightly. If some of
this spam arrives via the Mozilla mailing lists rather than being
emailed directly to the person, this is a sad thing, but it's IMO not a
crisis, and not worse than "normal" porn spam.
So here are some things I think that we can't do:
- Refuse all postings from Google Groups
- Disable all news -> mail transitions
So what classes of solution does that leave open?
- Switch away from Google Groups to hosting our own web-based interface
that we have more control over
- Find a way of running postings from Google Groups through a spam
filter
This is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=425122 . I guess
one issue with switching away from Google Groups is that it's a very
nice UI, and people like it.
However, it must be said that either of these two solutions requires a
certain amount of time from the server admins, and this request has to
compete for resources against other ones. I know you, Nelson, consider
the appearance of porn spam to be a very serious thing. I don't like it
either, but I think there's a possibility I may just have to deal with it.
Gerv
Eddy Nigg
> So here are some things I think that we can't do:
>
> - Refuse all postings from Google Groups
> - Disable all news -> mail transitions
>
> So what classes of solution does that leave open?
>
> - Switch away from Google Groups to hosting our own web-based
> interface that we have more control over
> - Find a way of running postings from Google Groups through a spam
> filter
>
There might be another option. What are the capabilities of Google
themselves? There are indeed a bunch of spams being posted now regularly
to the lists - all with a similar semantic. I guess Google has the
know-how to stop it already at their side.
John J. Barton
...>
> There might be another option. What are the capabilities of Google
> themselves? There are indeed a bunch of spams being posted now regularly
> to the lists - all with a similar semantic. I guess Google has the
> know-how to stop it already at their side.
>
Just a data point: for the Firebug google group we moderate new users
and manually block about a dozen spam posts per day.
jjb
Eddy Nigg
Can you explain to Nelson and perhaps other moderators how to do that? I
think this would help a lot.
Nelson Bolyard
>> Because of the way that Mozilla's mail<->news gateway works, all messages
>> that are posted to newsgroups go straight to the mailing lists, without
>> any filtration whatsoever. The mailman list server provides lots of
>> filtration capabilities for messages that originate as emails to the lists,
>> but for messages that come through the news->mail gateway, there is no
>> filtration whatsoever.
>
> This is a limitation of mailman?
Yes. Well, more exactly, it is a limitation of the collective software
in our mail list server. This problem would be COMPLETELY solved if all
incoming messages going through the news->mail gateway in that direction
were treated just like any other incoming messages for filtration purposes.
But today, they get a free pass.
Wanna post porn spam that gets to all the list subscribers? Just post it
from google groups.
It could also be solved in Mozilla's newsgroups were all moderated
newsgroups, using something like mailman's automated moderation to moderate
all messages. Either of those solutions would be preferable to what we
have now.
> The difficulty is that there are different sets of people who prefer
> SMTP, NNTP and HTTP methods of getting both read and write access to
> this content, and we need to support them all. Each group contains a
> significant number of people. Cutting one group off entirely, or forcing
> them to read-only, is not an acceptable solution.
I agree. I believe the technology exists to do what we want. Mozilla
just lacks the will to deploy it.
> If some of this spam arrives via the Mozilla mailing lists rather than
> being emailed directly to the person, this is a sad thing, but it's IMO
> not a crisis, and not worse than "normal" porn spam.
If you have TB filters set up to filter all messages that were sent to an
alias into a folder, that bypasses all the spam filtering.
> So here are some things I think that we can't do:
>
> - Refuse all postings from Google Groups
> - Disable all news -> mail transitions
>
> So what classes of solution does that leave open?
>
> - Switch away from Google Groups to hosting our own web-based interface
> that we have more control over
> - Find a way of running postings from Google Groups through a spam
> filter
That really can't be that hard.
which is going nowhere. As long as this task remains something that
someone will work on someday, when there's nothing more fun to do, it
won't happen.
> However, it must be said that either of these two solutions requires a
> certain amount of time from the server admins, and this request has to
> compete for resources against other ones. I know you, Nelson, consider
> the appearance of porn spam to be a very serious thing. I don't like it
> either, but I think there's a possibility I may just have to deal with it.
The spam that set of this thread was more than mere "porn" spam. The web
site offered to arrange call girls to some visit you. It's hooker spam.
As I wrote before, if child pornography gets distributed through Mozilla's
mail servers, you can expect them to be forcefully shut down.
David Miller
Bolyard <NOnels...@NObolyardSPAM.me> wrote:
> I have taken steps in the past to stop that spam from being sent to the
> Mozilla mailing lists that I supposedly moderate. The only effective
> step, given the limitations of mozilla's mailman server, is to stop the
> flow of all messages in the news->mail direction. (There is NO OTHER
> solution. There are NO FILTERS that have any effect on messages that
> go from news->mail through the gateway. It's all or nothing.)
Just so you know... we discovered, a month or two ago, a person
working on a patch for Mailman that enables the spam processing rules
to affect mail injected by the news gateway. We've offered to help him
test it out. It's not finished yet, and the current version still has
issues, but it's coming...
Contrary to popular belief, we do care, and have been actively looking
for ways to stop it. But it doesn't happen overnight, and outright
shutting it down as you suggest would hurt way more than it would help.
--
Dave Miller
Systems Administrator, Mozilla Corporation
Gervase Markham
> There might be another option. What are the capabilities of Google
> themselves? There are indeed a bunch of spams being posted now regularly
> to the lists - all with a similar semantic. I guess Google has the
> know-how to stop it already at their side.
At the moment we are "between contacts" with Google, which doesn't help.
We are working on reestablishing contact. But we have indicated this
problem to them in the past.
Gerv
Gervase Markham
> If you have TB filters set up to filter all messages that were sent to an
> alias into a folder, that bypasses all the spam filtering.
Is that true? I thought spam filtering ran before other filters. If it
doesn't, I'd suggest that should perhaps be configurable. It would be
cool if the spam filter were just another "special" entry in the filter
list, and could be moved up and down as appropriate.
> As I wrote before, if child pornography gets distributed through Mozilla's
> mail servers, you can expect them to be forcefully shut down.
I don't think that raising the spectre of child porn is helpful in this
discussion. If I were to construct and send you a message containing
such material, who would be at legal risk? Me, you, or the operators of
the computer systems the email passed through? I would suggest it would
be me, and me alone. The same is true here.
Gerv
John J. Barton
> On 04/06/2009 06:02 PM, John J. Barton:
>> Eddy Nigg wrote:
>> ...>
>>> There might be another option. What are the capabilities of Google
>>> themselves? There are indeed a bunch of spams being posted now
>>> regularly to the lists - all with a similar semantic. I guess Google
>>> has the know-how to stop it already at their side.
>>>
>>
>> Just a data point: for the Firebug google group we moderate new users
>> and manually block about a dozen spam posts per day.
>>
>>
>
> Can you explain to Nelson and perhaps other moderators how to do that? I
> think this would help a lot.
>
If you are an google groups manager you will have access to a page like:
http://groups.google.com/group/<group name here>/manage_access
Message moderation All messages are held for moderation
YES> No moderation - messages are delivered directly
YES> Messages from new members are moderated
One more unverified observation: the spam I block is almost all
'commercial' like the spam on mozilla, but they are not the same. We get
lots of jeans, tennis shoes and sex videos; mozilla gets more rolex and
sex videos. My point is not that you're a classier outfit but that the
diagnosis of the problem here is not 100% clear.
jjb
Nelson Bolyard
> Eddy Nigg wrote:
>> Can you explain to Nelson and perhaps other moderators how to do that? I
>> think this would help a lot.
>>
>
> If you are an google groups manager
I am not.
Nelson Bolyard
> On 07/04/09 06:38, Nelson Bolyard wrote:
>> If you have TB filters set up to filter all messages that were sent to an
>> alias into a folder, that bypasses all the spam filtering.
>
> Is that true?
Yes. If it were not true, I wouldn't have found the hooker spam in my
m.d.t.crypto folder.
> I thought spam filtering ran before other filters. If it
> doesn't, I'd suggest that should perhaps be configurable. It would be
> cool if the spam filter were just another "special" entry in the filter
> list, and could be moved up and down as appropriate.
Yes, and there's an RFE requesting that. It's seen many birthdays.
>> As I wrote before, if child pornography gets distributed through Mozilla's
>> mail servers, you can expect them to be forcefully shut down.
>
> I don't think that raising the spectre of child porn is helpful in this
> discussion. If I were to construct and send you a message containing
> such material, who would be at legal risk? Me, you, or the operators of
> the computer systems the email passed through? I would suggest it would
> be me, and me alone. The same is true here.
Perhaps in the UK, it would be. But not in the USA.
It the USA, mere receipt of child pornography can get you prison up to
10 years and/or a fine of up to USD 250K. A couple in my little town
went to prison for this very thing. The EFF tried to defend them, IIRC.
Kent James
> Gervase Markham wrote, on 2009-04-07 04:12 PDT:
>> On 07/04/09 06:38, Nelson Bolyard wrote:
>>> If you have TB filters set up to filter all messages that were sent to an
>>> alias into a folder, that bypasses all the spam filtering.
>>
>> Is that true?
>
> Yes. If it were not true, I wouldn't have found the hooker spam in my
> m.d.t.crypto folder.
>
I don't know the exact details of your setup, but moving a message does
not normally suppress spam filtering. I suspect the reason that the
hooker spam did not get flagged is because you have whitelisting enabled
for an address book, and the sender address for the email list was in
that address book.
rkent
Nelson Bolyard
> I don't know the exact details of your setup, but moving a message does
> not normally suppress spam filtering. I suspect the reason that the
> hooker spam did not get flagged is because you have whitelisting enabled
> for an address book, and the sender address for the email list was in
> that address book.
Do you honestly imagine I have iwan...@0.2773974nowathome.com whitelisted?
Chris Ilias
> I agree. I believe the technology exists to do what we want. Mozilla
> just lacks the will to deploy it.
That's an unfair and untrue statement. If you read justdave's last few
blog posts, you'll see that he is currently searching for a replacement.
http://www.justdave.net/dave/2009/02/24/web-interfaces-for-nntp/
http://www.justdave.net/dave/2009/03/04/replacing-google-groups-for-mozilla-newsgroups/
Not to mention he and I spent quite a bit of time testing different
configurations of the current setup.
I'm also having trouble understanding how posting in mozilla.governance,
saying that something must be done now, is helpful.
Chris Ilias
> On 04/06/2009 06:02 PM, John J. Barton:
>
>> and manually block about a dozen spam posts per day.
>
> Can you explain to Nelson and perhaps other moderators how to do that? I
> think this would help a lot.
He's using a Google Group, not a newsgroup. See
<http://groups.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46461>
Mike Shaver
> I'm also having trouble understanding how posting in mozilla.governance,
> saying that something must be done now, is helpful.
I think Nelson just didn't know how else to volunteer the details of
the solution that obviously exists, but which we didn't know we wanted
until he pointed it out. But now we are enlightened!
Mike
Nelson Bolyard
> On 4/7/09 1:38 AM, Nelson Bolyard wrote:
>> I agree. I believe the technology exists to do what we want. Mozilla
>> just lacks the will to deploy it.
>
> That's an unfair and untrue statement. If you read justdave's last few
> blog posts, you'll see that he is currently searching for a replacement.
> http://www.justdave.net/dave/2009/02/24/web-interfaces-for-nntp/
> http://www.justdave.net/dave/2009/03/04/replacing-google-groups-for-mozilla-newsgroups/
>
> Not to mention he and I spent quite a bit of time testing different
> configurations of the current setup.
So, we're having a problem with our lack of mail filtering, and you're
looking for another nntp host instead?
Simon Paquet
> So, we're having a problem with our lack of mail filtering, and
> you're looking for another nntp host instead?
Nelson, if I were you and really wanted things to get better I
wouldn't use every opportunity to piss off the people that are
trying to do something about it.
But maybe this is just me...
Just my 2c
Simon
--
Thunderbird/Calendar Localisation (L10n) Coordinator
Thunderbird l10n blog: http://thunderbird-l10n.blogspot.com
Calendar website maintainer: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar
Calendar developer blog: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/calendar
Michael Lefevre
Obviously not. He send the sender address for the email list, which
would be gover...@lists.mozilla.org or whatever.
Michael
Nelson Bolyard
> Nelson Bolyard wrote on 09. Apr 2009:
>
>> So, we're having a problem with our lack of mail filtering, and
>> you're looking for another nntp host instead?
>
> Nelson, if I were you and really wanted things to get better I
> wouldn't use every opportunity to piss off the people that are
> trying to do something about it.
I'm trying to provoke some people to stop being satisfied with the
status quo and DO something about the spam problem instead of the
usual response, like yours, which is to shoot the messenger.
I've been told by Mozilla ops that porn spam must be allowed to
continue. Not a good answer. Probably not consistent with Mozilla
policies.
Anyone who cares about policies listening?
> But maybe this is just me...
No, not just you. Lots of people would prefer to leave "well enough" alone.
Nelson Bolyard
>> I agree. I believe the technology exists to do what we want. Mozilla
>> just lacks the will to deploy it.
>
> That's an unfair and untrue statement. If you read justdave's last few
> blog posts,
Ha! Like I have time to read the blog posts of every MoCo employee.
Blogging is for the vain.
> you'll see that he is currently searching for a replacement.
> http://www.justdave.net/dave/2009/02/24/web-interfaces-for-nntp/
> http://www.justdave.net/dave/2009/03/04/replacing-google-groups-for-mozilla-newsgroups/
>
> Not to mention he and I spent quite a bit of time testing different
> configurations of the current setup.
> I'm also having trouble understanding how posting in mozilla.governance,
> saying that something must be done now, is helpful.
Governance gets the attention of people who set policies. (Or, it did once
upon a time.) The present defacto policy appears to be "whatever the
MoCo sysops find tollerable".
I want some real policy.
Nelson Bolyard
OK, so let's put this "blame the victim" nonsense to bed.
I have not whitelisted the sender of the mozilla crypto lists.
I have setup a filter to filter mail to the list to the folder.
That takes precendence.
Yes, Gerv, it does. You can ask "are you sure?" 16 more times, if you wish.
Nelson Bolyard
>
>> So, we're having a problem with our lack of mail filtering, and
>> you're looking for another nntp host instead?
>
> Nelson, if I were you and really wanted things to get better I
> wouldn't use every opportunity to piss off the people that are
> trying to do something about it.
>
> But maybe this is just me...
Let's be clear about something. The problem is NOT the choice of NNTP host.
The problem is lack of email filtering.
NNTP newsgroups will always have spam problems.
People who choose to read these lists by NNTP has decided to accept the
spam that goes with that. That's fine. No problem. I'm all for choice.
People who subscribe to a mailing list expect to get filtered email, even if
NNTP readers do not. That's their choice, and mailman disrespects it.
The email filters on mozilla's list server simply do NOT filter any messages
that come through the news->mail filter at all, none zero nada zilch. That
is what needs to be fixed.
There is a LOT of code to do filtering in mailman. Clearly, there is some
code in there that BYPASSES all that filtering for mail coming from the
news gateway. What's needed here is some "machete programming", the kind
of programming does with a machete knife, hacking away the cruft until
there's a clear path ahead. We don't need tons of new filtering code,
we need LESS of the code that bypasses all that filtration for mail from
the news gateway.
Robert Kaiser
> I've been told by Mozilla ops that porn spam must be allowed to
> continue.
You know, some people in the Mozilla community might depend on porn to
be productive - else they would need to look for a real relationship
that would consume much more of their time that they can spend coding
due to this porn... ;-)
Don't see thing negatively, try to put some positivism and humor into
things :)
Robert Kaiser
Jay Garcia
--- Original Message ---
> I've been told by Mozilla ops that porn spam must be allowed to
> continue. Not a good answer. Probably not consistent with Mozilla
> policies.
>
> Anyone who cares about policies listening?
>
>> But maybe this is just me...
Been down this road many times on secnews and when n.m.o was hosted on
the same server. It's not porn unless you open the message deliberately,
caveat emptor. However, removing the "cookie jar" to begin with is
preferred. In the case of the porn spam that is being posted recently, a
filter is quite easy to engage seeing as how most every subject is
prepended with <~~
--
Jay Garcia - Netscape/Flock Champion
www.ufaq.org
Netscape - Flock - Firefox - Thunderbird - Seamonkey Support
Jay Garcia
--- Original Message ---
Like I said, porn is only porn when/if you open the message, otherwise
it's just a subject line. :-D
John J. Barton
> Simon Paquet wrote, On 2009-04-09 01:55:
>> Nelson Bolyard wrote on 09. Apr 2009:
>>
>>> So, we're having a problem with our lack of mail filtering, and
>>> you're looking for another nntp host instead?
>> Nelson, if I were you and really wanted things to get better I
>> wouldn't use every opportunity to piss off the people that are
>> trying to do something about it.
>>
>> But maybe this is just me...
>
> Let's be clear about something. The problem is NOT the choice of NNTP host.
>
> The problem is lack of email filtering.
>
> NNTP newsgroups will always have spam problems.
> People who choose to read these lists by NNTP has decided to accept the
> spam that goes with that. That's fine. No problem. I'm all for choice.
Just so we understand, as a matter of 'governance' you don't think spam
protection should be extended to the entire mozilla community but only
to those who prefer email? As I understood your argument, it starts with
"spam is evil", and "evil demands immediate response". I just can't get
from there to "only email should be protected from evil".
jjb
Dave Miller
Bolyard <NOnels...@NObolyardSPAM.me> wrote:
> I've been told by Mozilla ops that porn spam must be allowed to
> continue. Not a good answer. Probably not consistent with Mozilla
> policies.
No, what you were told is that the porn spam couldn't be stopped using
the current software we have in place without also stopping legitimate
posts in the process, and those legitimate posts are what must be
allowed to continue. You sure like to twist everyone's words around,
don't you.
--
Dave Miller
System Administrator, Mozilla Corporation
Dave Miller
Bolyard <NOnels...@NObolyardSPAM.me> wrote:
> The problem is lack of email filtering.
>
> NNTP newsgroups will always have spam problems.
> People who choose to read these lists by NNTP has decided to accept the
> spam that goes with that. That's fine. No problem. I'm all for choice.
>
> People who subscribe to a mailing list expect to get filtered email, even if
> NNTP readers do not. That's their choice, and mailman disrespects it.
> The email filters on mozilla's list server simply do NOT filter any messages
> that come through the news->mail filter at all, none zero nada zilch. That
> is what needs to be fixed.
>
> There is a LOT of code to do filtering in mailman. Clearly, there is some
> code in there that BYPASSES all that filtering for mail coming from the
> news gateway. What's needed here is some "machete programming", the kind
> of programming does with a machete knife, hacking away the cruft until
> there's a clear path ahead. We don't need tons of new filtering code,
> we need LESS of the code that bypasses all that filtration for mail from
> the news gateway.
And this is exactly the patch we're hoping to deploy soon. It's not
ready yet. The problem isn't as simple as it sounds to actually get
the existing spam filtering code to work in the news->mail pathway.
There's nothing being bypassed, it just isn't called to begin with, and
the code that deals with news posts is a lot different than the code
that deals with mail submissions, so shoehorning the existing filtering
code into the path isn't exactly straightforward. But it will be done
one of these days, you just have to be patient.
Nelson Bolyard
LOL! Thanks Robert, I appreciate your perspective!
Nelson Bolyard
> Nelson Bolyard wrote:
>> Let's be clear about something. The problem is NOT the choice of NNTP host.
>>
>> The problem is lack of email filtering.
>>
>> NNTP newsgroups will always have spam problems.
>> People who choose to read these lists by NNTP has decided to accept the
>> spam that goes with that. That's fine. No problem. I'm all for choice.
>
> Just so we understand, as a matter of 'governance' you don't think spam
> protection should be extended to the entire mozilla community but only
> to those who prefer email? As I understood your argument, it starts with
> "spam is evil", and "evil demands immediate response". I just can't get
> from there to "only email should be protected from evil".
We are responsible for what is under our control. We don't control google
spam-groups. Google chooses to allow spammers, and by the time the message
gets to our mail/news gateway, it's already in google's spam groups.
We're not responsible for that. But when MOZILLA's news->mail gateway
forwards that spam without any filtering whatsoever, MOZILLA is solely
responsible. I want Mozilla to stop hiding behind excuses and start to
act responsibly, and that starts with a policy, which we evidently do not
have!
People who read google groups are making a choice to take the stream of
stuff that Google thinks is acceptable (which is apparently completely
unlimited). People who read Mozilla mailing lists are making a choice to
take the stream of stuff that Mozilla allows to pass. That's a BIG
difference.
But in the absence of any Mozilla policy from Mozilla's policy makers,
we have a bunch of Mozilla people who want to pass the buck to google
instead of taking responsibility for what Mozilla's mail server sends out.
Google's not the problem. Replacing google is not the solution.
Boris Zbarsky
>>> NNTP newsgroups will always have spam problems.
>>> People who choose to read these lists by NNTP has decided to accept the
>>> spam that goes with that.
> We are responsible for what is under our control. We don't control google
> spam-groups. Google chooses to allow spammers, and by the time the message
> gets to our mail/news gateway, it's already in google's spam groups.
> We're not responsible for that. But when MOZILLA's news->mail gateway
> forwards that spam without any filtering whatsoever, MOZILLA is solely
> responsible. I want Mozilla to stop hiding behind excuses and start to
> act responsibly, and that starts with a policy, which we evidently do not
> have!
You conveniently leave out the people who read the newsgroups in
question via the news.mozilla.org NNTP server. That's the NNTP group in
question when discussing NNTP here, not the Google mirror, and it's
under Mozilla's control.
So it seems to me that John's characterization of your attitude:
Just so we understand, as a matter of 'governance' you don't think
spam protection should be extended to the entire mozilla community
but only to those who prefer email?
is precisely correct.
You also carefully avoided Dave Miller's mail, which strikes me as
interesting, since he's one of the few people who've had anything
relevant to say on the substantive matter in this thread (that of
applying spam filters to the news messages before they cross the
news-to-mail gateway).
Between that and your general "the sky is falling" attitude, it's
becoming more and more clear that the right thing to do is to just
killfile this thread and let Dave get on with fixing the problem without
you wasting his time.
-Boris
Boris Zbarsky
> If you have TB filters set up to filter all messages that were sent to an
> alias into a folder, that bypasses all the spam filtering.
I assume you've filed a TB bug to allow spam-filtering folders other
than an inbox, or even treating spam-filtering as a message filter,
which can then be ordered against other filters as desired?
This sounds like it would be generally useful, quite apart from the
mailman issue at hand (which there seems to be general agreement needs
fixing, and has people working on fixing it already).
In any case, if you've filed such a bug, I'd appreciate a cc. If not,
why not?
-Boris
John J. Barton
> John J. Barton wrote, On 2009-04-11 08:44:
>> Nelson Bolyard wrote:
>
>>> Let's be clear about something. The problem is NOT the choice of NNTP host.
>>>
>>> The problem is lack of email filtering.
>>>
>>> NNTP newsgroups will always have spam problems.
>>> People who choose to read these lists by NNTP has decided to accept the
>>> spam that goes with that. That's fine. No problem. I'm all for choice.
>> Just so we understand, as a matter of 'governance' you don't think spam
>> protection should be extended to the entire mozilla community but only
>> to those who prefer email? As I understood your argument, it starts with
>> "spam is evil", and "evil demands immediate response". I just can't get
>> from there to "only email should be protected from evil".
>
> We are responsible for what is under our control. We don't control google
> spam-groups. Google chooses to allow spammers, and by the time the message
> gets to our mail/news gateway, it's already in google's spam groups.
> We're not responsible for that. But when MOZILLA's news->mail gateway
> forwards that spam without any filtering whatsoever, MOZILLA is solely
> responsible. I want Mozilla to stop hiding behind excuses and start to
> act responsibly, and that starts with a policy, which we evidently do not
> have!
As the manager for two Google groups, firebug and firebug working group,
I spend a little time every day preventing spam from being appended to
these groups. That way it is not seen by newsgroup readers nor by email
readers. Perhaps you will volunteer to do the same? Is it really a
problem of the anonymous Mozilla or Google, or more a problem of "We're
not responsible for that"?
jjb
Nelson Bolyard
> You conveniently leave out the people who read the newsgroups in
> question via the news.mozilla.org NNTP server. That's the NNTP group in
> question when discussing NNTP here, not the Google mirror, and it's
> under Mozilla's control.
Well, actually, it's under control of giganews, right? Mozilla ops can
expunge messages from it, after the fact, but not before.
> Between that and your general "the sky is falling" attitude, it's
> becoming more and more clear that the right thing to do is to just
> killfile this thread and let Dave get on with fixing the problem without
> you wasting his time.
OK, so I've heard the opinion of a product development engineer and various
systems operations persons. But this is the governance group, right?
I could have posted in a thunderbird group, or m.d.mozilla-org (where
operations discussions occur, AFAIK), but I wanted to engage MoFo's policy
makers. Let's hear what they have to say.
Mike Shaver
<NOnels...@nobolyardspam.me> wrote:
> I could have posted in a thunderbird group, or m.d.mozilla-org (where
> operations discussions occur, AFAIK), but I wanted to engage MoFo's policy
> makers. Let's hear what they have to say.
As someone who sometimes sets and often guides Mozilla policy, I think
- that spam (porn and other) is a problem that we should try to solve;
- that we should not try to solve it "at all costs" -- shutting off
the NNTP/email gateway isn't a reasonable cost, for example;
- that the plan described in this thread is sufficiently promising
that we pursue it before stomping our feet and crying out for Someone
to Do Something again; and
- that people who wish to see it happen faster, especially those with
programming ability and/or who are employed at companies that have
their own significant experience with mail and news technology, help
implement the necessary changes to mailman.
Mike
Dave Miller
Barton <johnj...@johnjbarton.com> wrote:
> As the manager for two Google groups, firebug and firebug working group,
> I spend a little time every day preventing spam from being appended to
> these groups. That way it is not seen by newsgroup readers nor by email
> readers.
The Mozilla newsgroups are not "Google Groups", they're standard Usenet
newsgroups as far as Google is concerned (which means no moderator
controls). They're not propagated to Usenet at large, but they're
treated the same.
John J. Barton
Perhaps this arrangement should be reconsidered. While I understand the
nostalgic attachment to the usenet era as well as the enthusiasm for
technological spam protections, the very simple reality is that the best
solution to spam is technology-assisted human moderation. While I don't
like the Google user interface for newsgroups, the new-user moderation
scheme works very well. Perhaps it could be adapted to the mozilla
newsgroup technology in future.
jjb
Simon Paquet
>> The Mozilla newsgroups are not "Google Groups", they're standard
>> Usenet newsgroups as far as Google is concerned (which means no
>> moderator controls). They're not propagated to Usenet at large,
>> but they're treated the same.
>
> Perhaps this arrangement should be reconsidered.
Absolutely not. Why should we abandon a technical superior access
channel to an inferior web-based access channel?
Mike Shaver
> John J. Barton wrote on 12. Apr 2009:
>
>>> The Mozilla newsgroups are not "Google Groups", they're standard Usenet
>>> newsgroups as far as Google is concerned (which means no moderator
>>> controls). They're not propagated to Usenet at large, but they're treated
>>> the same.
>>
>> Perhaps this arrangement should be reconsidered.
>
> Absolutely not. Why should we abandon a technical superior access
> channel to an inferior web-based access channel?
Do you not have a mail client? :)
(The answer is likely to be "because maintaining that linkage is
difficult both technically and operationally, and that effort would be
much better spent elsewhere".)
Mike
Simon Paquet
>>>> The Mozilla newsgroups are not "Google Groups", they're standard
>>>> Usenet newsgroups as far as Google is concerned (which means no
>>>> moderator controls). They're not propagated to Usenet at large,
>>>> but they're treated the same.
>>>
>>> Perhaps this arrangement should be reconsidered.
>>
>> Absolutely not. Why should we abandon a technical superior access
>> channel to an inferior web-based access channel?
>
> Do you not have a mail client? :)
I have (Thunderbird) and it is as inferior to a good usenet client as
the web-based Google stuff especially when it comes to important
basic features such as speed and filtering capabilities.
Robert Kaiser
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 7:50 AM, Simon Paquet<web...@babylonsounds.com> wrote:
>> John J. Barton wrote on 12. Apr 2009:
>>
>>>> The Mozilla newsgroups are not "Google Groups", they're standard Usenet
>>>> newsgroups as far as Google is concerned (which means no moderator
>>>> controls). They're not propagated to Usenet at large, but they're treated
>>>> the same.
>>>
>>> Perhaps this arrangement should be reconsidered.
>>
>> Absolutely not. Why should we abandon a technical superior access
>> channel to an inferior web-based access channel?
>
> Do you not have a mail client? :)
If we would abandon the newsgroup side of things, I would unsubscribe
from a large part of our communications, and I know a good number of
other people who would do the same. I'm already pissed off on a number
of other things I'm subscribed to that are available only as mailing
lists, as they just pollute my mail account while I can read the groups
on-demand in a way more relaxed style and with good threading (except
for some occasional, unintentional thread breaking that mostly happens
due to some Mozilla-employed people using bad mail interfaces).
I'd be all in favor of stopping the mailing list side though, it would
spare people like Nelson from getting spam in their inbox through those
lists :P
Robert Kaiser
Mike Shaver
> If we would abandon the newsgroup side of things, I would unsubscribe from a
> large part of our communications, and I know a good number of other people
> who would do the same.
Makes me wonder how many contributors other projects are missing out
on, since I don't know very many at all that provide NNTP access.
(And given our problems with it, I think with good reason.)
I suspect that the answer is "very very very few", but that's just me.
> I'm already pissed off on a number of other things
> I'm subscribed to that are available only as mailing lists,
Have you tried gmane?
Mike
Robert Kaiser
Wait, you suggest nobody missed NNTP in those other projects and mention
the apparently quite successful gmame project that provides exactly that
because people were missing it? ;-)
Still, our problem isn't that we have a newsgroup/mailing-list mirror
and that would be hard to administrate or so, our problem is that
mailing lists get spam because we have writable access to them via
Google groups. The spam coming directly via NNTP is about as much as the
spam coming directly through the mailing lists, last I heard. The
problem is the stuff coming in via Google groups and not being filtered
at the mailing list entry level.
People using the newsgroup side have not much of a problem because spam
is 1) more easily ignored there and 2) deleted after the fact on the
newsgroup server, both of which are a larger problem on the mailing list
side.
We need to attack this by either filtering or switching off posting from
Google groups or by finding an alternative web entry point for people
who both don't access via email *or* NNTP, or doing both of those
things, actually.
Bitching about the two entry points that work without a lot of spam,
i.e. mailing lists and NNTP, doesn't help the issue, actually.
Robert Kaiser
Mike Shaver
> Wait, you suggest nobody missed NNTP in those other projects and mention the
> apparently quite successful gmame project that provides exactly that because
> people were missing it? ;-)
I specifically asked about contributors -- people who are interested
in a project and willing to contribute, but don't because they can't
get NNTP access.
> Still, our problem isn't that we have a newsgroup/mailing-list mirror and
> that would be hard to administrate or so, our problem is that mailing lists
> get spam because we have writable access to them via Google groups. The spam
> coming directly via NNTP is about as much as the spam coming directly
> through the mailing lists, last I heard.
Thanks, this is good data -- do you recall where that data came from?
If turning off google-groups posting would have major effects, then
that might be something worth doing until we get the better spam
controls in place (or instead of, if those spam controls are going to
be difficult to implement).
Mike
Robert Kaiser
IIRC, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=425122 should have
some of that, and if anyone has more details on this, it's justdave.
Robert Kaiser
John J. Barton
> John J. Barton wrote on 12. Apr 2009:
>
>>> The Mozilla newsgroups are not "Google Groups", they're standard
>>> Usenet newsgroups as far as Google is concerned (which means no
>>> moderator controls). They're not propagated to Usenet at large, but
>>> they're treated the same.
>>
>> Perhaps this arrangement should be reconsidered.
>
> Absolutely not. Why should we abandon a technical superior access
> channel to an inferior web-based access channel?
I'm only suggesting abandoning open posting to newsgroups. I guess the
technically superior access channel must support new-user moderation:
let's use it.
jjb
Robert Kaiser
You haven't yet understood that posting from the newsgroup side isn't
the problem, but posting from Google groups is, I assume.
Robert Kaiser
Chris Ilias
> John J. Barton wrote on 12. Apr 2009:
>
>>> The Mozilla newsgroups are not "Google Groups", they're standard
>>> Usenet newsgroups as far as Google is concerned (which means no
>>> moderator controls). They're not propagated to Usenet at large, but
>>> they're treated the same.
>>
>> Perhaps this arrangement should be reconsidered.
>
> Absolutely not. Why should we abandon a technical superior access
> channel to an inferior web-based access channel?
One idea I threw into the fire on
<http://www.justdave.net/dave/2009/03/04/replacing-google-groups-for-mozilla-newsgroups/#comment-55991>,
is see if there's a way to push/pull messages with a Google Group (not
the NNTP version).
But in retrospect, I don't like that idea either. What I think this
boils down to is lack of control due to outsourcing.
Eddy Nigg
> I'd be all in favor of stopping the mailing list side though, it would
> spare people like Nelson from getting spam in their inbox through
> those lists :P
>
Which would cut off another group perhaps. Besides that I want to voice
my support for the newsgroup side, very convenient!
--
Regards
Signer: Eddy Nigg, StartCom Ltd.
Jabber: star...@startcom.org
Blog: https://blog.startcom.org
Nelson Bolyard
> On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 5:21 AM, Nelson Bolyard
> <NOnels...@nobolyardspam.me> wrote:
>> I could have posted in a thunderbird group, or m.d.mozilla-org (where
>> operations discussions occur, AFAIK), but I wanted to engage MoFo's policy
>> makers. Let's hear what they have to say.
>
> As someone who sometimes sets and often guides Mozilla policy, I think
I appreciate your input here. I am amazed, however, at the total lack
of participation by MoFo's usual policy makers.
> - that spam (porn and other) is a problem that we should try to solve;
> - that we should not try to solve it "at all costs" -- shutting off
> the NNTP/email gateway isn't a reasonable cost, for example;
The mailing lists which I nominally moderate are available via two other
NNTP servers that also have web-based access (two others besides google
groups, that is). Those other two servers (nabble and gmane) provide NO
TROUBLE to the lists at all. They do not require Mozilla's mail/news
gateway. They receive the lists as mail, which they run through their
own mail->news gateway. Postings to their news groups are mailed back
to Mozilla's lists, where they go through the normal filters. Those
servers only allow registered users to post, so the actual amount of
spam that originates with them is essentially zero. For more info about
them, see
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-tech-crypto
So, I claim that turning off Mozilla's broken news->mail gateway (in
that direction only) doesn't stop anyone who wants to read and/or post
to those lists with an NNTP client nor with a web browser, and it does
greatly mitigate the spam.
> - that the plan described in this thread is sufficiently promising
> that we pursue it before stomping our feet and crying out for Someone
> to Do Something again; and
I am quite capable of solving this myself. I have been told by MoCo
systems admins that I may not do so.
As for being patient, I have been the moderator of these lists for years
(since the lists were on Netscape's servers). I'm still waiting.
At this point, IMO this problem deserves more than whatever attention
some MoCo systems operations people decide to give it today.
It needs a policy that will guide the prioritization of the effort to
deal with it. I'm hearing a bunch of people say "Oh, don't ask for a
policy. Just wait some more." Why is a policy so feared?
Eddy Nigg
> So, I claim that turning off Mozilla's broken news->mail gateway (in
> that direction only) doesn't stop anyone who wants to read and/or post
> to those lists with an NNTP client nor with a web browser, and it does
> greatly mitigate the spam.
Nelson, isn't this rather Google Groups -> NNTP -> mail gateway? Maybe
shutting posting from Google Groups would provide some relief for now
without taking down all of NNTP? Google Groups could still fetch the
messages for the archive...
Eddy Nigg
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 8:34 PM, Eddy Nigg<eddy...@startcom.org> wrote:
>
>> Nelson, isn't this rather Google Groups -> NNTP -> mail gateway? Maybe
>> shutting posting from Google Groups would provide some relief for now
>> without taking down all of NNTP? Google Groups could still fetch the
>> messages for the archive...
>>
>
>> If turning off google-groups posting would have major effects, then
>> that might be something worth doing until we get the better spam
>> controls in place (or instead of, if those spam controls are going to
>> be difficult to implement).
>>
>
So is this considered? Do we know how many actually post via the GGs?
Nelson Bolyard
> On 04/15/2009 03:19 AM, Nelson Bolyard:
>> So, I claim that turning off Mozilla's broken news->mail gateway (in
>> that direction only) doesn't stop anyone who wants to read and/or post
>> to those lists with an NNTP client nor with a web browser, and it does
>> greatly mitigate the spam.
>
> Nelson, isn't this rather Google Groups -> NNTP -> mail gateway? Maybe
> shutting posting from Google Groups would provide some relief for now
> without taking down all of NNTP? Google Groups could still fetch the
> messages for the archive...
Eddy. There are NUMEROUS NNTP servers that carry dev.tech.crypto.
Shutting down Mozilla's gateway to one of them will stop the spam from
the major source, and will NOT cut off people who want to read and
participate via NNTP. See
Eddy Nigg
Thanks for clarifying. I must admit that I'm not a specialist in NNTP
matters, but I take full advantage of this feature here at Mozilla,
that's why it's important to me (and apparently many others) to keep it
up despite the really annoying spam (and I guess you know how much I
dislike it).
Dan Mosedale
> On 2009-04-12 05:41, Mike Shaver wrote:
>> On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 5:21 AM, Nelson Bolyard
>> <NOnels...@nobolyardspam.me> wrote:
>>> I could have posted in a thunderbird group, or m.d.mozilla-org (where
>>> operations discussions occur, AFAIK), but I wanted to engage MoFo's
>>> policy
>>> makers. Let's hear what they have to say.
>>
>> As someone who sometimes sets and often guides Mozilla policy, I think
>
> I appreciate your input here. I am amazed, however, at the total lack of
> participation by MoFo's usual policy makers.
As another sometime Mozilla policy wonk, I will say that your framing of
this thread with a rant/troll that has led to an enormous discussion has
made me less interested in participating, in part because I need to get
real work done, and can't afford to spend a lot of time wading through
all the somewhat relevant content. I suspect I'm not the only person
who has had this reaction.
That said, I agree that there's a problem here that has taken far too
long to get traction on, so I'm joining in anyway.
> At this point, IMO this problem deserves more than whatever attention
> some MoCo systems operations people decide to give it today.
> It needs a policy that will guide the prioritization of the effort to
> deal with it. I'm hearing a bunch of people say "Oh, don't ask for a
> policy. Just wait some more." Why is a policy so feared?
I suspect you're correct when you frame this as a prioritization issue.
It seems quite unlikely to me that issuing a declaration of policy is
likely to have much effect on the actual economics of the things that
the IT folks are required to prioritize this work _against_. In other
words, it doesn't appear to me that writing some sort of "no spam
allowed" policy is likely to help the situation much.
I would suggest that your best bet in the short term here is to have a
discussion with someone in MoCo IT more directly involved in that
priority setting. Assuming that's not Dave, I suspect that he can
direct you to the proper person.
As far as bigger picture goes, I suspect it would be easier to have
discussions like this if we could improve the mix of organizational
transparency and design such that it was easy to get a simple overview
of various sets of priorities. The Q2 planning spreadsheets that have
been floating around the .planning group lately are an excellent first
step in that direction. I suspect that with a little creative thinking,
other individuals and groups could think of simple experiments to run in
this space as well.
Dan
Chris Ilias
> I am quite capable of solving this myself. I have been told by MoCo systems admins that I may not do so.
Could you expand on that?
One option I know that you have, is to make mozilla.dev.tech.crypto a
moderated newsgroup with the mailing list as the moderator address.
Messages posted via
<http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.tech.crypto> or
<news://news.mozilla.org/mozilla.dev.tech.crypto> will go through the
list server, and you can use
<https://lists.mozilla.org/admin/dev-tech-crypto/?VARHELP=privacy/sender/accept_these_nonmembers>
to list addresses from people not subscribed to the mailing list that
should be automatically approved.
The only caveat is that you have to turn off auto-rejection for posts
from nonmembers (unless you want to force everyone to subscribe to the
list and turn off mail delivery).
On 4/15/09 5:30 AM, Nelson Bolyard wrote:
> Eddy. There are NUMEROUS NNTP servers that carry dev.tech.crypto.
Just so there's no confusion, neither news.mozilla.org or Google Groups
peer the Mozilla newsgroups with anyone else.
See <http://www.mozilla.org/community/developer-forums.html>:
"The mozilla.* hierarchy is a *local* news hierarchy only available
through news.mozilla.org and is not propagated to other Usenet servers.
This is by design, in order to both help eliminate spam and provide
slower lag time between posts and replies without having to wait for
propagation. Please do not mirror our newsgroups elsewhere without
providing a disclaimer that they should use news.mozilla.org to post.
(We do share them with Google Groups to provide a web access method and
archiving.)"
One or more news servers are disguising themselves as news clients, to
pull articles, and possibly feed them to other news servers they peer
with. In most cases, posts via another server will not arrive on
news.mozilla.org/Google Groups/lists.mozilla.org.
Nelson Bolyard
> On 4/14/09 8:19 PM, Nelson Bolyard wrote:
>> I am quite capable of solving this myself. I have been told by MoCo systems admins that I may not do so.
>
> Could you expand on that?
>
> One option I know that you have, is to make mozilla.dev.tech.crypto a
> moderated newsgroup with the mailing list as the moderator address.
No, that is not an option that I have. It is within the realm of technical
feasibility, but it is another of several options that are closed to me by
MoCo operations, despite the absence of published policy.
> Messages posted via
> <http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.tech.crypto> or
> <news://news.mozilla.org/mozilla.dev.tech.crypto> will go through the
> list server, and you can use
> <https://lists.mozilla.org/admin/dev-tech-crypto/?VARHELP=privacy/sender/accept_these_nonmembers>
> to list addresses from people not subscribed to the mailing list that
> should be automatically approved.
Just as indeed I already do and have for years now.
> The only caveat is that you have to turn off auto-rejection for posts
> from nonmembers (unless you want to force everyone to subscribe to the
> list and turn off mail delivery).
Just as indeed I already do and have for years now.
> On 4/15/09 5:30 AM, Nelson Bolyard wrote:
>> Eddy. There are NUMEROUS NNTP servers that carry dev.tech.crypto.
>
> Just so there's no confusion, neither news.mozilla.org or Google Groups
> peer the Mozilla newsgroups with anyone else.
Just so there's no confusion, there are ways for NNTP servers to effectively
peer without doing so through NNTP. That's what nabble and gmane do.
> "The mozilla.* hierarchy is a *local* news hierarchy only available
> through news.mozilla.org and is not propagated to other Usenet servers.
Not via NNTP, perhaps.
> propagation. Please do not mirror our newsgroups elsewhere without
> providing a disclaimer that they should use news.mozilla.org to post.
> One or more news servers are disguising themselves as news clients, to
> pull articles, and possibly feed them to other news servers they peer
> with. In most cases, posts via another server will not arrive on
> news.mozilla.org/Google Groups/lists.mozilla.org.
One or more such servers have their own mail/news gateways. They subscribe
to Mozilla mailing lists, and take the emails they receive from those lists
and gateway them into their newsgroups. Likewise, they take postings that
originate on their news servers (and their web front ends for their news
servers) and mail them back to Mozilla's list server where they arrive as
email and go through ordinary mail filtration.
Nabble and gmane both do that, and I have ZERO problem with content received
from them. To be frank, the content received from them is MUCH
higher quality (being on topic and well informed) than any of the content
from google groups and much of the content from giganews.
Nelson Bolyard
> On 4/14/09 5:19 PM, Nelson Bolyard wrote:
>> On 2009-04-12 05:41, Mike Shaver wrote:
>>> On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 5:21 AM, Nelson Bolyard
>>> <NOnels...@nobolyardspam.me> wrote:
>>>> I could have posted in a thunderbird group, or m.d.mozilla-org (where
>>>> operations discussions occur, AFAIK), but I wanted to engage MoFo's
>>>> policy makers. Let's hear what they have to say.
>>> As someone who sometimes sets and often guides Mozilla policy, I think
>> I appreciate your input here. I am amazed, however, at the total lack of
>> participation by MoFo's usual policy makers.
>
> As another sometime Mozilla policy wonk, I will say that your framing of
> this thread with a rant/troll that has led to an enormous discussion has
> made me less interested in participating, in part because I need to get
> real work done, and can't afford to spend a lot of time wading through
> all the somewhat relevant content. I suspect I'm not the only person
> who has had this reaction.
Sorry, Dan, but I've tried going through channels for a LONG time and have
gotten nowhere. People with responsibility for this have blown it off
for far too long. Now I'm trying to appear to their bosses.
I have intentionally resorted to provocation to engage people in this
subject, because nothing else has succeeded in engaging people.
> That said, I agree that there's a problem here that has taken far too
> long to get traction on, so I'm joining in anyway.
See? It works! How much longer would you have stayed uninvolved if I
hadn't provoked you?
>> At this point, IMO this problem deserves more than whatever attention
>> some MoCo systems operations people decide to give it today.
>> It needs a policy that will guide the prioritization of the effort to
>> deal with it. I'm hearing a bunch of people say "Oh, don't ask for a
>> policy. Just wait some more." Why is a policy so feared?
>
> I suspect you're correct when you frame this as a prioritization issue.
> It seems quite unlikely to me that issuing a declaration of policy is
> likely to have much effect on the actual economics of the things that
> the IT folks are required to prioritize this work _against_. In other
> words, it doesn't appear to me that writing some sort of "no spam
> allowed" policy is likely to help the situation much.
It depends on where the policy originates. If it originates at the
lowest ranks of the organization, then you're right. If it originates
at the highest ranks of the organization, and it has no effect, then
people aren't doing their jobs and aren't being managed properly.
> I would suggest that your best bet in the short term here is to have a
> discussion with someone in MoCo IT more directly involved in that
> priority setting.
Been there, done that. I'm trying to go up the ranks. It's sad that I must
resort to provocation to get there.
Mike Shaver
<NOnels...@nobolyardspam.me> wrote:
> See? It works! How much longer would you have stayed uninvolved if I
> hadn't provoked you?
Yes, and responding to your provocations under the
benefit-of-the-doubt premise that you were simply ignorant of how rude
and unpleasant it was isn't a mistake I'll repeat, speaking only for
myself.
Congratulations, your mission is accomplished.
Before I go, though, is there a public mailing list on which I could
appeal to your bosses, if I shouldn't like how you make decisions
about your work and can't find a "published policy" that addresses the
specific case? That could be handy in the future.
Mike
Nelson Bolyard
> Before I go, though, is there a public mailing list on which I could
> appeal to your bosses, if I shouldn't like how you make decisions
> about your work and can't find a "published policy" that addresses the
> specific case? That could be handy in the future.
Mike, You appear to be threatened by the call for a written Mozilla policy
regarding the propagation of spam (especially porn spam) to Mozilla mailing
lists. That's surprising, to say the least.
I don't know your exact role in MoCo, but will guess for this reply that
it's in IT management. If so, I would expect you to WELCOME a formal spam
policy. I'd expect you to CALL FOR such a policy to resolve all this.
(And if you're not in IT, then I definitely don't understand your response.)
A written policy regarding propagation of spam through Mozilla mail list
servers has great potential to defend your group's actions (to "cover your
ass", in vernacular terms) by giving you a clear-cut answer for why the
operations staff does, or does not, do certain things in response to spam
(assuming, of course, that the operational performance is in line with the
policy). It also potentially gives you good reason to ask for budget with
which to fulfill operational obligations imposed by the policy.
And finally, I gather that the policy has yet to be written. That means you
still have an opportunity to participate in its creation. There's
still opportunity to advocate for whatever position you wish.
So, please drop your weapons (:-) and join me in this call for a policy.
I think it will be a win for all concerned.
/Nelson
Nelson Bolyard
> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 6:17 AM, Nelson Bolyard
> <NOnels...@nobolyardspam.me> wrote:
>> Mike, You appear to be threatened by the call for a written Mozilla policy
>> regarding the propagation of spam (especially porn spam) to Mozilla mailing
>> lists. That's surprising, to say the least.
>
> from you!
Great, Mike. You've turned this call for a policy to guide operations
into an ad hominem attack on me. I have not named any persons, and have
not called for anyone's resignation or reprimand. My view is not that
person X or person Y did a bad thing, but rather that there is no policy
guiding them, and in its absence, each person does what he thinks best.
Now, spam is an old issue, so many people here tend to blow off discussions
of the problem. You apparently become incensed by them.
> Policy doesn't prevent spam, changes to mailman will
> prevent (reduce) spam, and those changes are underway.
So, in effect, mailman is being changed to implement a new policy.
Whose policy is that? Where did it come from?
You do not think it inappropriate to have policies for open efforts led
by volunteer contributors. Why do you oppose a policy for an effort
controlled by a corporate service organization that has exclusive control
over these services vital to the whole community?
>> I don't know your exact role in MoCo, but will guess for this reply that
>> it's in IT management.
> You're wrong, but if you wanted to be right then Google would probably
> help you.
Mike, I actually have some pretty good ideas about what you do, even though
we have virtually no direct interactions. The point I was trying to make
is that, such an intense response as you made towards me personally, might
be expected from someone who felt that he was personally being attacked, but
it is not expected from someone who is not under direct fire. Since
I did not attack you, (or any individual in MoCo, for that matter), your
reaction is difficult to understand. Maybe you just don't like any
criticism of MoCo operations?
The issue here isn't you, and it isn't me. It's the absence of a way to
openly set the rules, the policies, by which the communications channels
we all use are regulated. It's governance. Killing the messenger doesn't
seem like a good example of that governance.
Dave Miller
Bolyard <NOnels...@NObolyardSPAM.me> wrote:
> Mike Shaver wrote, On 2009-04-17 04:11:
> > Policy doesn't prevent spam, changes to mailman will
> > prevent (reduce) spam, and those changes are underway.
>
> So, in effect, mailman is being changed to implement a new policy.
> Whose policy is that? Where did it come from?
It's not a new policy, it's an existing policy (we don't want spam on
our lists) that we previously didn't have a way to enforce, and with
this change (when it eventually happens) we will now have a way to
enforce it. I might add that it's implementing a suggestion you
yourself made earlier in this thread (get the existing spam controls in
Mailman to work on messages coming in via the news gateway).
--
Dave Miller
Systems Administrator, Mozilla Corporation
Michael Lefevre
> Mike Shaver wrote, On 2009-04-17 04:11:
>> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 6:17 AM, Nelson Bolyard
>> <NOnels...@nobolyardspam.me> wrote:
>>> Mike, You appear to be threatened by the call for a written Mozilla policy
>>> regarding the propagation of spam (especially porn spam) to Mozilla mailing
>>> lists. That's surprising, to say the least.
>> I'm not threatened at all by a call for policy, especially not one
>> from you!
>
> Great, Mike. You've turned this call for a policy to guide operations
> into an ad hominem attack on me. I have not named any persons, and have
> not called for anyone's resignation or reprimand.
I shouldn't be replying to this, but that is nonsense. It's quite
possible to make "ad hominem attack"s without using names or calling for
resignations, and that's what you have been doing. You already admitted
that you were trolling in order to provoke a reaction. Now you are
complaining that the reaction to your trolling is an attack on you.
> The issue here isn't you, and it isn't me
The primary issue in this thread is you. If that wasn't what you hoped
to achieve, then you were doing it wrong.
Michael
Jean-Marc Desperrier
> If turning off google-groups posting would have major effects, then
> that might be something worth doing
It would be good to have numbers of how many useful post came from
google vs spam. Vlad was very strongly in favor of allowing google post
in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=327251 but I'm not
convinced factual numbers would support his claims.
A compromise if it's proven that they are very few useful posts actually
coming from google might be to remove google posting for the
mozilla.dev.* groups.