MT-NewsWatcher 2.3.1 released
Dr. Dave
In article <dgorski-1106...@maxreader.bsd.uchicago.edu>,
dgo...@x-site.net (ORAC) wrote:
>...I'm considering moving the hyphen elsewhere in my
> address, to produce something like xs-ite.net, which is highly unlikely
> ever to be registered.
From a viewpoint clouded by paranoia, *any* domain could be registered.
Doc
real e-mail address is: f4ph...@pobox.com
Greg Berigan
In news.software.readers, dgo...@xsite.net (ORAC) wrote:
>If a lot of people started telling me that
>they disapprove of my method of munging, I might also reconsider. So far,
>you're the *only* one who has.
Indeed, I am the only person I know of who goes as far as killfiling
mungers. I'm vocal about it both as fair warning and to raise public
awareness regarding the problems munging causes beyond the human
inconvenience factor.
>>Actually, you're giving a potential "them" a problem now. The spammers
>>are getting your hyphenated address now and they know enough to junk any
>>bounce messages they get. That address is going to be floating around
>>in their list databases for years long after you stop posting with it.
>>It may not go to any valid username there, but the traffic will affect
>>the site the moment it comes online.
>That is, of course, strictly a hypothetical problem right now. Since no
>one has yet registered x-site.net (I checked yet again today!), there are
>no owners of that domain name to be inconvenienced by bounced messages.
>There might not even *ever* be such a domain.
But there could be, and you yourself have said there is a high
probability that there will be. Why else would you be so concerned over
that possibility that you'd check periodically if someone had purchased
that domain?
>Should I change my method
>because someone *might* register that domain and therefore *might* get
>bounced messages to me? Someone *might* register "spamblocker.net,"
>"spamblocker.com," "remove.com," or "nospam.com," or domains containing
>any number of commonly used munging strings, too. (I could especially see
>"remove.com," "delete.com," or "nospam.com" being registered.)
Well, remove.com really was a domain. I visited their website when they
still existed. Apparently they shut it down, possibly due to the high
degree of spam caused by people feeding *.REMOVE.com addresses to
spammers. I'm not privy to their reasons. (Actually, nslookup returns
"*** No address (A) records available for remove.com".)
As it is, due to munger activity, those domains are no longer viable and
are damaged goods. Any adopters will be forced to stop using them in
short order, and they'll be out $200 or more. Meanwhile, InterNIC could
sue mungers for damaging their product. Also I wouldn't be surprised
that new legislation that bans spammers from faking their return
addresses could be applied to mungers as well.
>Would you
>suggest that everyone stop using those strings for munging their address,
>too?
I'd suggest that everyone stop munging and use server-side filtering.
There have been people who have posted testimonals of their experiences
as former mungers and present-day filterers. They've all said that
filtering is a much better way to block UCE and is much more effective
than munging.
The thing about munging is that, for it to be successful, it requires
the cooperation of everyone to work. It is well known that such schemes
are doomed to failure, particularly online. I hope more people choose
not to cooperate with mungers so as to eliminate this scheme as a viable
method of avoiding spam and force those employing it to adopt effective
methods like server-side filtering and filtering by proxy%path@addresses.
--
_-<#)-=# http://cse.unl.edu/~gberigan/War-of-the-Worlds.html
___/___
_-~_--<###) Due to widespread abuse, I no longer read any messages
<~c>' __--< from users who employ munged addresses in their headers.
\_--=____#) Munging is not worth the increased load on DNS servers.
Sylvan Butler
Terje Bless (li...@tss.no) wrote:
: I think that if you did a little research before you open your mouth, you'd
: find that it will be the rest of USENET that misses out on what Greg has to
: contribute instead of the other way around.
That would be so sad. What would that be, 100's of post complaining
about people violating RFCs and two posts complaining about posting to
the wrong group? I think we'd really miss him.
sdb
--
| Sylvan Butler | Not speaking for Hewlett-Packard | sbutler.boi.hp.com |
| Watch out for my e-mail address. Thank UCE. #### change ^ to @ #### |
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. --Benjamin Franklin, 1759
"Don't Tread On Me!"