List spam

[gene heskett]

On Thursday, August 18, 2011 02:12:58 PM Alain Ketterlin did opine:

> gene heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> writes:
> >> Or save work and find a public nntp server (or setup one, or ask your
> >> provider), and use a news reader to follow the list (even thunderbird
> >> can do this). No spam, no need to store messages on your machine,
> >> auto-purge after a configurable delay, etc.
> > 
> > That is asking the user to take considerable effort and resources to
> > do that.  What is wrong with the mailing list only approach?
> 
> Nothing really.
> 
> Regarding effort and resources, once you've found a NNTP server there's
> very little effort (probably less than subscribing to a mailing list). I
> have 4 lines in my .emacs. And this lets me browse dozens of groups (or
> thousands if I had time for this). It might not be easy to find a server
> which will let you post, but that's because a few years back many
> internet providers decided that nntp was too much traffic. I guess it
> would now be considered ridiculous compared to the average web-site.
> 
> But I'd like to return the question. What's wrong with nntp?

The sheer volume of traffic eats 99% of an ISP's bandwidth.  The last time 
I checked with one of the local ISP's that I quit using years ago because 
it was 30 miles away and was then long distance, giving me $300 phone 
bills, they said their server died (again, and that then traffic was such 
that a 300GB hard drive was being subject to a posting lifetime of 3 hours 
because it was filling the drive that quickly.  At the time, they had 5 T1 
circuits, and NNTP was eating 4 of them.  To an ISP, that stuff is found on 
the ground behind the male of the bovine specie.  No ISP I have access to a 
mail account on, except google, has the resources to maintain a full 
listing nnpt server.

> It looks
> like everybody agrees that nntp brings spam. I just wanted to say that's
> not true, I use nntp extensively and haven't seen spam for months (I'm
> talking about 15-20 groups, not comp.lang.python only).
> 
> The real problem here seems to be google groups, which in some way
> forwards spam to the mailing-list. How this happens is beyond my
> understanding. But let's try to fix the real problem.
 
I could just nuke them, but I suppose I'd then have to resubscribe to about 
10 of my mailing lists through the server this msg comes from.  That is 
gradually happening anyway because posting through a gmail account, you 
cannot turn off the dup deletions, so one never knows if ones post to a 
list got there until someone replies, you don't get an echo.  I have even 
tried CCing this address as some have suggested, but that doesn't work 
either.

gmail is NOT the huge thing it was touted to be, not by a hell of a long 
row of apple trees.
 
> -- Alain.


Cheers, gene
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