spam flood yesterday

[Lars Uffmann]

Is it just me or was that about the worst flooding in months? I'm
seriously thinking the severe punishment for spammers should be made a
prerequisite for countries wanting to join the WTO....

Damn annoying...

Nm & Best Regards,

Lars

 

[Mark Shroyer]

Is it just me or was that about the worst flooding in months? I'm
seriously thinking the severe punishment for spammers should be made a
prerequisite for countries wanting to join the WTO....

Damn annoying...

Nm & Best Regards,

Lars

Or a severe punishment for companies that allow their users to continue
spamming Usenet even after said users have been reported multiple times.

The most frustrating thing about that flood was that 99% of it came from
Google. I'd been teetering on the edge of killfiling Google Groups for
months, and that was enough to finally push me over the edge... I mean,
I feel bad that I'll be blocking some smart and interesting people in
the process, but at this point it's either that or give up on Usenet
altogether.

--
Mark Shroyer
http://markshroyer.com/contact/

Sorry, I won't see articles posted from
Google Groups: http://improve-usenet.org/

 

[Lars Uffmann]

months, and that was enough to finally push me over the edge... I mean,
I feel bad that I'll be blocking some smart and interesting people in
the process, but at this point it's either that or give up on Usenet
altogether.

I guess those users always have the option to use a real newsserver -
spammers not so easily, so that makes sense. I'll watch it a few days,
might block google-groups then myself...

Good idea, sadly :/

Lars

 

[hjvbsjdvbcjsadbc]

Is it just me or was that about the worst flooding in months? I'm
seriously thinking the severe punishment for spammers should be made a
prerequisite for countries wanting to join the WTO....

Damn annoying...

Nm & Best Regards,

Lars

pishi po russki cyka

 

[itdevries]

Is it just me or was that about the worst flooding in months? I'm
seriously thinking the severe punishment for spammers should be made a
prerequisite for countries wanting to join the WTO....

Damn annoying...

Nm & Best Regards,

   Lars

I'm spending some time reporting a lot of it to google, not sure if it
helps but it eases my frustration...

 

[Marcel Müller]

The most frustrating thing about that flood was that 99% of it came from
Google. I'd been teetering on the edge of killfiling Google Groups for
months, and that was enough to finally push me over the edge...

That's exactly what I have just done.

I mean,
I feel bad that I'll be blocking some smart and interesting people in
the process, but at this point it's either that or give up on Usenet
altogether.

Full Ack. In fact these people have to look for alternatives, because
they soon will not get much replys anymore. It's a shame becuse they
have not done anything wrong. But that are the unwritten rules of the
internet.

The bad thing about that is that even more users are pushed to web
forums. But these are short-lived and often with nearly unuseable
navigation.


Marcel

 

[James Kanze]

I guess those users always have the option to use a real newsserver -

Some of us post from behind a firewall, which won't transmit
NNTP. We don't have a choice: it's Google Groups or nothing.

 

[James Kanze]

* Marcel Müller:

[...]

Well, I know that most of the [comp.std.c++] moderators, or,
considering that group's status, perhaps I should say former
moderators, work at Google, and since they're C++ folks
perhaps they're reading.

Do they? Of the three original moderators, one does now work at
Google, but one is still at Sun, and the other is, as far as I
know, still at the University of Melbourne.

Of course, none of those three are active moderators today.

With regard to Google, of course, it suffers from one of the
same problems as Microsoft: it's too big. The left hand doesn't
know what the right hand is doing, and the former comp.std.c++
moderator who works there has no connection what so ever with
the part that handles news groups.

The part that handles news groups, of course, needs serious
rework. Even before the spam, the HTML that they sent must rank
as some of the worse (and I mean, not conform with the
standards), and it regularly causes Firefox to crash (which
means that there are bugs in Firefox as well, because correct
programs don't crash, regardless of the input).

But I'd be ashamed to work at that company right now, even
though in a wider perspective it's said to be one of the
bestest firms on this planet.

The employee benefits are said to be very good. For the rest,
who knows? It doubtlessly depends on which group you work in.

 

[Default User]

Some of us post from behind a firewall, which won't transmit
NNTP. We don't have a choice: it's Google Groups or nothing.

I personally just don't believe in canning whole domains. I've had
excellent luck setting up filters to take care of the spam.




Brian

 

[Mark Shroyer]

I personally just don't believe in canning whole domains. I've had
excellent luck setting up filters to take care of the spam.

On the contrary, I think that filtering whole networks is one of the
most effective ways to fight spam in the long run, as it cumulatively
puts pressure on the network owner to do something about all the spam
coming from their network. This is the very principle behind UDP and it
has worked well in the past, but I think it can be just as effective if
the blocking is performed by some critical mass of individual users
rather than by the server administrators (who are generally hesitant to
UDP someone as big as Google).

Again, I feel bad about blocking legitimate Google Groups users, but
when I can get rid of 99% of the spam polluting my favorite newsgroups
by blocking a single source, why should I do otherwise? In the end,
this problem is Google's responsibility to fix, and Google Groups users
can take it up with them if they don't like the consequences.

But out of curiosity, what filtering techniques / software are you
using? Bayesian classification? I was having pretty good luck with
MT-NewsWatcher's junk filter up until the latest flood, but enough of it
still got through that I ultimately had to stem the tide at its source
(or however the heck that idiom goes).

 

[Default User]

On the contrary, I think that filtering whole networks is one of the
most effective ways to fight spam in the long run, as it cumulatively
puts pressure on the network owner to do something about all the spam
coming from their network. This is the very principle behind UDP and
it has worked well in the past, but I think it can be just as
effective if the blocking is performed by some critical mass of
individual users rather than by the server administrators (who are
generally hesitant to UDP someone as big as Google).

I certainly agree that if it was anyone besides the $900 billion
gorilla, it would UDP by now. Nobody has ever allowed spam like this
before.

But out of curiosity, what filtering techniques / software are you
using?

Just good old-fashioned keyword matching in the subject lines. Every
once in a while I have to add something new, but like today, no spam
here at all.



Brian

 

[Lars Uffmann]

Some of us post from behind a firewall, which won't transmit
NNTP. We don't have a choice: it's Google Groups or nothing.

Darn. I just had my filter to delete everything from @gmail.com set up,
then I read this post of yours - only because filter didn't apply to
already downloaded stuff... I need a whitelist :/ I hate it when spam is
being forced down my throat.

:/

Lars

 

[Lars Uffmann]

I'm spending some time reporting a lot of it to google, not sure if it
helps but it eases my frustration...

Hehe - I just attempted (in vain) to get my news provider to UDP google.
Cowards!

Best Regards,

Lars

 

[Richard Herring]

In message

Some of us post from behind a firewall, which won't transmit
NNTP. We don't have a choice: it's Google Groups or nothing.

True, but it might make distinguishing you from the spam a little easier
if you could arrange for your From: header to contain something other
than a gmail.com address, as most of the spam appears to be from
throwaway gmail accounts.

 

[Ian Collins]

With today's spam, I would find it more useful to have a filter
that will check incoming posts for any of a list of web sites, and
if any of them are found, delete that post. Of course, my
newsreader does not offer that option.

Nothing appears to have got through the filters news.individual.net for
several days. You need to look at getting a better service.

 

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Rolf Magnus:

Hmm, From Google, I've never seen any reaction to my reports at all. And
even if they do something about it, the spammer just needs to create a new
account and go on. IMHO, Google is a disease (at least on Usenet). Close to
100% of Usenet's spam is posted via Google Groups.

+1

 

[Rolf Magnus]

back in 2008


I'm spending some time reporting a lot of it to google, not sure if it
helps but it eases my frustration...

itdevries
---
My experience with reporting spam to Google Groups is that you
can expect them to do something about it. But not until 4 to 6
weeks after you send the spam report, and not at all for any spam
that no one reports (i. e., most of it).

Hmm, From Google, I've never seen any reaction to my reports at all. And
even if they do something about it, the spammer just needs to create a new
account and go on. IMHO, Google is a disease (at least on Usenet). Close to
100% of Usenet's spam is posted via Google Groups.

 

[Miles Bader]

Nothing appears to have got through the filters news.individual.net for
several days. You need to look at getting a better service.

Seriously.

I use news.individual.net, and AFAICT, there's essentially no spam.

[Kinda like gmail that way.]

-Miles

 

[Default User]

Seriously.

I use news.individual.net, and AFAICT, there's essentially no spam.

NIN uses a variety of "cleanfeed". I think primarily that's to eliminate
binaries from their text-only system, but it also gets most of the spam. So,
yay NIN.




Brian