[Mailman-Users] spam discard expressions

[Jim Dory]

Thanks for the reply Stephen,

I opened a trouble ticket to see if the host support had a solution to all
the spam. They suggested setting the spam reject score in SpamAssassin for
our VPS server at 3.5.  When I had it set earlier at 5, it started marking
member's posts as spam and rejected them. Didn't seem to fix when I moved
that score number to 1, though that might not be a proper number to use, I
don't know.

Anyway, the spam didn't really stop with that measure. No idea why.. the
list's domain is the only one on that vps server. So I have resorted to
using mailman settings. I have set the Sender Filters and the header
filters to filter out certain subject phrases and words and to
auto-discard. I get auto-discard notices of about 150 to 200 per day, but
since they are stacked in just a couple notices it isn't difficult to
delete. So I'm considering the problem solved unless the host complains
about our traffic. Whatever I did, I haven't had a single spam get through
my filters yet and no complaints from members about false positives. The
spammers attacking us must not be very smart, though they are persistent.

/jim

On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 10:46 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull <
turnbull.stephen.fw at u.tsukuba.ac.jp> wrote:

> Sorry, I've been ignoring Mailman for a few days, and I guess you've
> got a solution that works already.  This is a pair of alternatives
> that each have some advantages and disadvantages compared to your
> regexp-based solution.  FWIW, YMMV
>
> Jim Dory writes:
>
>  > Apparently our host provider performs spam tests only on outgoing,
>  > rather than incoming - since my spamassassin blacklists don't have
>  > any effect.
>
> Your spamassassin blacklists will have no effect on Mailman, since
> Mailman is not you.  Ask your provider how to configure this.  I
> strongly recommend this in preference to any measures in Mailman as it
> reduces the burden on the host.
>
>  > So I've discovered the filters offered in Mailman after being
>  > completely buried by spammers trying to post to our subscriber only
>  > list.
>
> I suppose you have cPanel, and I don't know much about their web
> management interface.  If it's similar to vanilla Mailman, in Privacy
> Filters -> Sender Filters near the bottom, there is an option
> "generic_nonmember_action".  You can set that to Discard if you're
> sufficiently sure that members always use their subscribed address, or
> are willing to have members using unsubscribed addresses to post have
> their posts silently discarded.
>
> I recommend STRONGLY against using Reject, as that often results in
> "backscatter", which is spam to "borrowed" addresses in "From".
>
> This measure will be effective against all of the spammers in the list
> below.  It will not work against spammers who spoof your subscribers'
> addresses.
>
> HTH
>
> Steve
>
>