Nonsubscribers attacking one of my lists.
One of my forums has suddenly been inundated with posts to the list by non-subscribers, most of which seem to be coming from some homosexual list somewhere.
These seem to be coming from every place in the world.
I receive notices from Mailman every time I check my e-mail listing of 4 to a dozen non-subscribers attempting post to the forum, and I have to go to my admin database and remove and block each one.
Is there some way to prevent these jerks from showing up in the database at all?
Ken Gordon
Set the action on Sender Filters for messages from non-members to discard, instead of hold. I had to do that a long time ago (Don’t reject or you will be generating back-scatter)
On Jan 19, 2019, at 4:58 PM, Kenneth G. Gordon <kgordon2006@frontier.com> wrote:
One of my forums has suddenly been inundated with posts to the list by non-subscribers, most of which seem to be coming from some homosexual list somewhere.
These seem to be coming from every place in the world.
I receive notices from Mailman every time I check my e-mail listing of 4 to a dozen non-subscribers attempting post to the forum, and I have to go to my admin database and remove and block each one.
Is there some way to prevent these jerks from showing up in the database at all?
Ken Gordon
Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/richard%40damon-family...
On 19 Jan 2019 at 17:08, Richard Damon wrote:
Set the action on Sender Filters for messages from non-members to discard, instead of hold. I had to do that a long time ago (Don´t reject or you will be generating back-scatter)
OK. I'll try that.
I DO get messages from non-subscribers once in a while that I should pass on to the forum, but there are so few of those that at this point, I had better follow your advice.
Thanks,
Ken Gordon
On 1/19/19 5:24 PM, Kenneth G. Gordon wrote:
On 19 Jan 2019 at 17:08, Richard Damon wrote:
Set the action on Sender Filters for messages from non-members to discard, instead of hold. I had to do that a long time ago (Don´t reject or you will be generating back-scatter) OK. I'll try that.
I DO get messages from non-subscribers once in a while that I should pass on to the forum, but there are so few of those that at this point, I had better follow your advice.
Thanks,
Ken Gordon
It's basically a policy call. If it is a few known addresses, you can add them to accept these non-members to white list. If you want to accept some non-member but reject others, unless you can devise a filter to distinguish, you need to review them all.
-- Richard Damon
Hello Richard Damon. On Sat, 19 Jan 2019 21:43:42 -0500, you wrote:
It's basically a policy call. If it is a few known addresses, you can add them to accept these non-members to white list. If you want to accept some non-member but reject others, unless you can devise a filter to distinguish, you need to review them all.
It is possible to "subscribe" to a list and set that address to "nomail". So, this participant can still send messages to the list but will not receive anything. Much better idea than manually going through all the messages held for moderation.
Christian
--
Christian F. Buser, Hohle Gasse 6, CH-5507 Mellingen (Switzerland)
Hilfe fuer Strassenkinder in Ghana: http://www.chance-for-children.org
At Sat, 19 Jan 2019 13:58:08 -0800 "Kenneth G. Gordon" <kgordon2006@frontier.com> wrote:
One of my forums has suddenly been inundated with posts to the list by non-subscribers, most of which seem to be coming from some homosexual list somewhere.
These seem to be coming from every place in the world.
I receive notices from Mailman every time I check my e-mail listing of 4 to a dozen non-subscribers attempting post to the forum, and I have to go to my admin database and remove and block each one.
Is there some way to prevent these jerks from showing up in the database at all?
Check the message headers -- there might be common patterns. Look for Received: headers with "unknown" -- this is a giveaway that the messages are using spoofed From: headers. Also look at the From: address, sometimes these messages are coming from partitular domains.
There are spam filters and sender filters. When the regexp matches, one option is to *silently* discard the message.
*If* you have access to the inbound MTA's configuration, there are things there that can drop or bounce the messages at that point.
Ken Gordon
Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/heller%40deepsoft.com
-- Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services
I assume you are referring to random postings vs. an adversary targeting you specifically.
An internet-facing mail server has to have some anti-spam technology <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-spam_techniques#Confirmed_opt-in_for_mail...>. Email addresses out on public web pages will get hoovered up and added to spam lists. The server will soon be hit by botnets from around the world. By default Mailman lists the posting address of the mailing list. Expect spam!
If you are being hit by spam then you should stop it before your server accepts the incoming mail. Once mail is accepted on your system you have lost half the battle. Either discard unwanted posts or risk back scatter. As you noted it takes work in Mailman to handle general spam.
May I suggest creating a web page with addresses to serve as a honeypot on your server. Then you know everything sent to those addresses are junk. I learned a lot by using that trick.
Ciao, //Z\\ Jim Ziobro On 1/19/2019 4:58 PM, Kenneth G. Gordon wrote:
One of my forums has suddenly been inundated with posts to the list by non-subscribers, most of which seem to be coming from some homosexual list somewhere.
These seem to be coming from every place in the world.
I receive notices from Mailman every time I check my e-mail listing of 4 to a dozen non-subscribers attempting post to the forum, and I have to go to my admin database and remove and block each one.
Is there some way to prevent these jerks from showing up in the database at all?
Ken Gordon
Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/list%40ziobro.rocheste...
participants (6)
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Christian F Buser -
Jim Ziobro -
Kenneth G. Gordon -
Richard Damon -
Richard Damon
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Robert Heller