Google Groups Spam

[Daniel Feenberg]

Users of Google Groups to view comp.lang.fortran will be aware that GG has done no spam filtering on that group since October 17, 2009. However, the "new" GG appears to restore spam filtering, and is current accessible in test mode at:

http://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/comp.lang.fortran

Ironically, the new interface bears a striking resemblance to the old dejanews. I did experience some incompatibilities with the Chrome browser, but overall it is a great improvement.

Daniel Feenberg
NBER

[user1]

Daniel Feenberg wrote:
>
> http://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/comp.lang.fortran
>

I see plenty of spam.

With the new interface, navigating through the postings seems mysterious
and difficult.

[Andrew Mai]

I clicked on the link and got to a "front door" which I could not get past. Google claims I have two
accounts. Then there is a bunch of other wordy explanations that sound a lot like phishing attempts
that I have encountered in the past. I quickly gave up.

Andy

[Robert Miles]

During some hours, you will. However, during hours when a few of us are marking the spam, the spam will usually already be marked as abuse, and you will see it only if you decide to click on it anyway (possibly so you can click on the triangle to the right of the gear, click on abuse, and mark it as abuse a second time so that it should disappear from the list for everyone except the two who have marked it as abuse).

Or, if you prefer, you can apply the first abuse marking yourself. Open the spam message, click on the octagon with the ! character in it, click on report as abuse, click on the type of abuse if it is other than spam, and at the bottom, click on the button to send in this report. Most messages reported as a type of abuse other than spam get faster action, if the abuse department agrees with you on what type of abuse it is.

The new interface will show several consecutive messages already reported as abuse almost as if they were a single message, and therefore taking up less space on the screen. One problem with this - if enough is already reported as abuse, the interface becomes rather slow as you scroll down far enough in the list (but not quite as slow if you have an SSD drive).

You'll need to click on each thread that look worth reading to expand the thread into individual messages. Then click on each message you want to read.

[Robert Miles]

I have two GG accounts, and have found a way past the front door. Before entering the front door, make sure you are already logged into one of your GG accounts, so it will not need to ask which one to use.

[user1]

On 3/11/2012 2:06 PM, Robert Miles wrote:
>One problem with this - if enough is already reported as abuse, the
interface becomes rather slow as you scroll down far enough in the list

Indeed, that is the ugliest part of the new interface. It seems it will
load more topics only when you scroll to the bottom of the page. There
are no longer any forward or backward navigation buttons that will
quickly page through 20 or so topics at once. Instead, the list gets
longer every time you scroll to the bottom, updates more slowly each
time, and you end up with an ever growing list of topics all on a single
page. Yuck.

[Arjen Markus]

Op zondag 11 maart 2012 22:35:36 UTC+1 schreef user1 het volgende:

I noticed this myself - it makes scrolling back, say, one year an exercise
in patience. I already reported this and other complaints to Google.

Though I must say I am pleased to see that spam reporting has effect.

Regards,

Arjen

[Robert Miles]

Once you scroll back far enough, the new interface will start displaying messages about a script running too slowly and asking if you want to continue - at least on computers without an SSD. On my computer with an SSD, I've haven't needed to scroll back over about 600 messages, and that's not far enough to cause those messages on that computer. You may want to add a complaint about this as well.

You can get some improvement in this by using advanced searches page to have it display only the posts from a few days at a time, but not always enough to avoid a need for an SSD. You may want to add a complaint that the new interface makes it difficult to even find the advanced searches page, unless you've already saved its URL.

Also, it appears likely that once you have enough practice reporting large numbers of consecutive spam posts, their software will start considering you a computer program, and no longer display them as reported as abuse for anyone but you. Look up "cancelbots" if you want to see a likely reason why. You may want to add a suggestion to allow spam reporting faster than new posts from the same computer is allowed, to make sure that one person reporting spam can keep up with any spammer.

[ken.fa...@gmail.com]

Agreed. I think what is happening behind the scenes is that a javascript
script is running on *your* computer to collate and hide all the messages
marked as abuse. But GG wants to process enough messages to "fill up"
at least two display pages (my observation...I don't know what the actual
algorithm is). And given the volume of spam on c.l.f, that is hundreds,
perhaps pushing 1000+ messages to process (again, locally!).

I have a dual-core, 3 Ghz, Windows box. Under Firefox, while GG is
processing the main topic list, one of the two cores goes 100% untilized
for a significant fraction of a minute. And please note, this gets much
worse if, for any reason, you need to scroll down to older messages so that
you've got several (as opposed to one or two) pages on the scroll bar.

For this reason, I discovered it was much faster (though still frustrating
slow) to mark abuse messages from the most recent to the oldest, rather than
in chronological order, which is what I would otherwise be inclined to do...

Regards, Ken

[Andrew Mai]

On 03/11/2012 07:08 AM, Daniel Feenberg wrote:

> overall it is a great improvement.

I don't see any improvement. It's still mostly spam.

Andy

[stan]

Google doesn't care, and never has. I don't see any real way to help
Google feel a compelling need (read as worthy of resources).

Complaints have never worked; they are not unaware of the problem they
simply don't consider it important.

The issue isn't really filtering or removing spam from the newsgroup,
the issue is that the spam originates on Google's servers in the first
place. The solution would require changing Google's news servers and
there is no evidence that is on the horizon.

I honestly had a hard time understanding why Google got into usenet in
the first place, they clearly never had real interest and managed to
make things worse by engaging halfway.

[Xavier Roche]

On 03/14/2012 04:45 PM, Andrew Mai wrote:
> I don't see any improvement. It's still mostly spam.

You are using a very badly maintained news server ; with cleanfeed and
NoCeM, you should not see a single spam in this group.

Try albasani (http://albasani.net/), aioe (http://news.aioe.org/), glorb
(http://www.glorb.com/usenet.php), individual (http://individual.net/)
or eternal-september (http://www.eternal-september.org/)

[Gordon Sande]

With eternal-september when I ran my newsreader this time it announced that
there were 412 posting in c.l.f. However when I opened the newsgroup to read
the posting there turned out to be exactly and only this message. I presume
the other 411 were spam that had be subject to cancels.

[Terence]

With simple Outlook Express; the newsreader option defining the read stream
as comp.lang.fortran and the filter set to one one-line list of unwanted
words in the title, today's 640 messages (shown as count on first pass of
titles), brought in only 21 real messages. That work for me and I used to
complain a lot about spam.

[Andrew Mai]

On 03/15/2012 01:03 AM, Xavier Roche wrote:

> You are using a very badly maintained news server

I am not using Google; I simply commented that Google still has spam.

> Try albasani (http://albasani.net/), aioe (http://news.aioe.org/), glorb (http://www.glorb.com/usenet.php), individual
> (http://individual.net/) or eternal-september (http://www.eternal-september.org/)

I tried eternal-september.org. It was easy to sign up but then I could not figure out how to actually read the comp.lang.fortran group.

I am now using news.sunsite.dk. It seems to work fine except I do not see how to easily delete read messages. (Pushing the "Delete"
button in Thunderbird does not count -- I still need to push the button for each and every message.)

Andy

[Tim Prince]

You don't delete others' posts on newsgroups. Tbird has a "view threads
with unread" and other typical newsreader options, such as Kill thread
(the thread will return if a new message is added).

[ken.fa...@gmail.com]

Not replying to anyone in particular, but this GG spam
in c.l.f is really out of hand.

I marked-as-spam about 425 messages last Thursday, but
I took Friday off, so no looking at the group until
today, Monday. I paged through 19(!) screens of spam
since Thursday afternoon, at about 23 messages per
screen = about another 200 messages (seems like more
than that, sigh...).

-Ken

[Terence]

Repeating advice.
1) Use Outlook Express (similar ideas for other newsreader services)
2) Under Tools; select account; tab NEWS; select ADD; put in your service
provider (probable "news.something.com". Check Properties
(news.something.com), check server is correct, check port is 119. OK and
close.
3) Under Tools; select newgroups; select subscribe; select or type
Comp.lang.fortran; Ok and close.
4) Under Tools, Select Message rules; select News Rules; Select NEW; (new
News rule #1); add rule (word by word, one after the other) that the title
line should not contain the following words:
girls, buy, viagra, sexy, nude, prescription, medicines,p aypal, naked,
wholesale, purchase, order, cheap, discount, purchase, price, generic, cost,
achete, health, (and add any more you might need). Apply Now.

5) test. Should run tice through about 5 years of posting, (shows total
number in high tens of thousands) then eliminate the spam on second pass
(and shows low unread count).
6) remove your choice of range of old postings permanently (click on first,
scroll don, shift-click on some later item; hit delete key); repareat as
desired.

7) don't test again till you have read the "unread" items in bold.

clicking and then deleting removes undefined spam.
double clicking reads and marks as read.

[Lynn McGuire]

ES works great for me after I figured out how to
setup the login. And the new spam control is
awesome in c.l.f.

To turn the delete key on in Thunderbird, use
Chris Ilias's great delete function:
http://ilias.ca/blog/2011/07/deleting-individual-newsgroup-messages-in-thunderbird/

Lynn

[Tim Prince]

On 03/20/2012 05:44 PM, use...@gfarlie.demon.co.uk wrote:

> On Sunday, 11 March 2012 18:06:03 UTC, Robert Miles wrote:
>> On Sunday, March 11, 2012 11:30:03 AM UTC-5, user1 wrote:
>
>> During some hours, you will. However, during hours when a few of us are marking the spam, the spam will usually already be marked as abuse, and you will see it only if you decide to click on it anyway (possibly so you can click on the triangle to the right of the gear, click on abuse, and mark it as abuse a second time so that it should disappear from the list for everyone except the two who have marked it as abuse).
>>
>

> Given that Google is seemingly unable to tackle this problem itself, perhaps it's time to start contacting the owners of the brands being advertised with complaints about irresponsibly promoted or counterfeit products, and explaining that Google is unwilling to to take any action over it. I'm not sure if the drugs being advertised are 'controlled' in the US, but here in the UK if you 'assist' irresponsible drug sales , you get sent to jail...
>

The only American assistance visible there is the willingness of Google
to carry the ads. Good luck on contacting the Asian makers of
counterfeit drugs and asking them to advertise elsewhere.

[stan]

use...@gfarlie.demon.co.uk wrote:

> Given that Google is seemingly unable to tackle this problem itself,
> perhaps it's time to start contacting the owners of the brands being
> advertised with complaints about irresponsibly promoted or
> counterfeit products, and explaining that Google is unwilling to to
> take any action over it. I'm not sure if the drugs being advertised
> are 'controlled' in the US, but here in the UK if you 'assist'
> irresponsible drug sales , you get sent to jail...

Good luck tracking them down. I find it impossible to believe the drug
companies are not already aware of issue; not specifically in this
newsgroup but certainly they are aware of the alternative drug market.

There are exactly two entities who can effectively manage this spam;
the idiots who actually buy stuff from spammers and the google servers
who provide the point of origin. The issue confuses some but it really
has nothing to do with the google news interface provided by
google.

Their mail and news servers have never been secure and nearly everyone
knows it. To play devils advocate for a moment, I'll ask how do yo
provide servers anyone can use and still make them secure? There's no
perfect solution and the issues involved are not trivial. How much do
you want google reading and messing with your mail? Clearly to filter
mail something has to examine contents and deciding how and which mail
to examine and what to do with the results is a tough problem. What if
the mail filter picked up plans to rob a bank or kill people, what
action to take? That puts google in a clearly unwanted and hard
position, but clearly google could do better if they wanted.

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

stan <smo...@exis.net> wrote:
> use...@gfarlie.demon.co.uk wrote:

>> Given that Google is seemingly unable to tackle this problem itself,
>> perhaps it's time to start contacting the owners of the brands being
>> advertised with complaints about irresponsibly promoted or
>> counterfeit products, and explaining that Google is unwilling to to
>> take any action over it. I'm not sure if the drugs being advertised
>> are 'controlled' in the US, but here in the UK if you 'assist'
>> irresponsible drug sales , you get sent to jail...

> Good luck tracking them down. I find it impossible to believe the drug
> companies are not already aware of issue; not specifically in this
> newsgroup but certainly they are aware of the alternative drug market.

It is hard to track down the e-mail, but if they are actually
selling something then it should be possible to find them.

One might argue that just sending the e-mail isn't illegal, but
actually selling prescription drugs without a prescription is.

-- glen

[stan]

glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:
> stan <smo...@exis.net> wrote:
>> use...@gfarlie.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
>>> Given that Google is seemingly unable to tackle this problem itself,
>>> perhaps it's time to start contacting the owners of the brands being
>>> advertised with complaints about irresponsibly promoted or
>>> counterfeit products, and explaining that Google is unwilling to to
>>> take any action over it. I'm not sure if the drugs being advertised
>>> are 'controlled' in the US, but here in the UK if you 'assist'
>>> irresponsible drug sales , you get sent to jail...

Check this out:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57401964/fake-avastin-importer-claims-he-broke-no-laws/?tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea

That will probably wrap poorly google "fake avastin CBS news" and
check out the guys story.

>> Good luck tracking them down. I find it impossible to believe the drug
>> companies are not already aware of issue; not specifically in this
>> newsgroup but certainly they are aware of the alternative drug market.
>
> It is hard to track down the e-mail, but if they are actually
> selling something then it should be possible to find them.

Tracking the people, money or products has proven beyond reach for law
enforcement so far. Even when you win a round of whack-a-mole, it
becomes a moot point.

> One might argue that just sending the e-mail isn't illegal, but
> actually selling prescription drugs without a prescription is.

Actually it doesn't work that way. Laws have limits and jurisdiction
problems. What law covers a guy in Africa selling drugs through a web
site in China and shipping the drugs from Amsterdam?

Certainly no one country has such a law. It's hard to imagine an
entity with deeper pockets or more lobbying clout than the drug
companies and they clearly haven't been able to make a dent. Some
countries, China comes to mind don't really care what the US thinks
about their laws and have no desire to help enforce US laws.

Most of the spammed drugs aren't regulated in a few counties; and in such
countries anyone can buy them over the counter or out in a
alley. There is no law that says I can't buy such a drug but there are
laws against importing such things in many countries. Catching
individual shipments of drugs in the mail systems is a fools errand.

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

stan <smo...@exis.net> wrote:

(snip, I wrote)

>> It is hard to track down the e-mail, but if they are actually
>> selling something then it should be possible to find them.

> Tracking the people, money or products has proven beyond reach for law
> enforcement so far. Even when you win a round of whack-a-mole, it
> becomes a moot point.

>> One might argue that just sending the e-mail isn't illegal, but
>> actually selling prescription drugs without a prescription is.

> Actually it doesn't work that way. Laws have limits and jurisdiction
> problems. What law covers a guy in Africa selling drugs through a web
> site in China and shipping the drugs from Amsterdam?

That is true, but likely it isn't even illegal to advertize
selling prescription drugs in the US, but only illegal to actually
do it.

But selling US drugs to US consumers, even from outside, likely
is illegal.

(snip)

-- glen

[michael...@compuserve.com]

On Friday, March 23, 2012 2:57:29 AM UTC+9, stan wrote:

> use...@gfarlie.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
> How much do
> you want google reading and messing with your mail? Clearly to filter
> mail something has to examine contents and deciding how and which mail
> to examine and what to do with the results is a tough problem.

Yes, but I use Norton for my e-mail and it does a splendid job of sorting the wheat from the chaff. Google could do something similar and, for instance, write suspect posts to a reserved group such as comp.lang.fortran.spam.

Regards,

Mike Metcalf

[michael...@compuserve.com]

On Friday, March 23, 2012 2:57:29 AM UTC+9, stan wrote:
> use...@gfarlie.demon.co.uk wrote:
>

> How much do
> you want google reading and messing with your mail? Clearly to filter
> mail something has to examine contents and deciding how and which mail
> to examine and what to do with the results is a tough problem.

Yes, but I use Norton to filter by e-mail and it does a splendid job of sorting the wheat from the chaff. Google could at least, for instance, divert suspect posts to a reserved group such as comp.lang.fortran.spam.

Regards,

Mike Metcalf

[stan]

I think Google could do more, but I think Google reading public mail
is opening Pandora's box. I'm not a lawyer but I can imagine the
liability issues alone would be non trivial.

[Terence]

Using a Outlook Express as a reader, plus a single filter, I reduced 470
SPAM of today (displayed on first pass check of headers) to 20 genuine
messages (shown as final count). Works for me.
Filter line specifies one german and one french word as well as the usual
lingua franca English