&& Suggestion

[phaedrus]

Hi all,

Actually there is quite a lot of spam here after all. How about we
prefix all our messages with some symbol or other we can all agree to
use as I've done here, so meaningful, on-topic posts can be more
readily sorted from the rubbish?

 

[Keith Thompson]

Actually there is quite a lot of spam here after all. How about we
prefix all our messages with some symbol or other we can all agree to
use as I've done here, so meaningful, on-topic posts can be more
readily sorted from the rubbish?

You're not going to get everyone to agree to do this. Even if all
current posters agreed, new posters wouldn't be familiar with
the convention; the net result would be that people who filter
on "&&" would never see questions from newbies.

My news server is news.eternal-september.org. It's free, and it does
a reasonably good job of filtering out most spam before I see it.
There are other free servers as well.

 

[Kenny McCormack]

You're not going to get everyone to agree to do this. Even if all
current posters agreed, new posters wouldn't be familiar with
the convention; the net result would be that people who filter
on "&&" would never see questions from newbies.

That wouldn't really be much of a price to pay, since the answer to 99%
of all newbie questions is "Try either comp.os.windows.programmer or
comp.unix.programmer or read www.c-lang-faq". Note: I may have mistyped
one or more of these addresses, but you get the ideals. One of the
autism-affected other posters will surely correct before nightfall.

So, we could setup an automated process to auto-reply to all newbie
posts with the above text and it would free us from ever having to
bother. We can then get on with the character assasination and
name-calling in peace.

 

[phaedrus]

You're not going to get everyone to agree to do this.  Even if all
current posters agreed, new posters wouldn't be familiar with
the convention; the net result would be that people who filter
on "&&" would never see questions from newbies.

Sorry, Keith. Perhaps I didn't explain adequately. I wasn't suggesting
the regulars then filter out anything without a && (or whatever it
might be). With no filters set up it would simply be faster to
*visually* spot messages that are far more likely not to be spam;
that's all.

 

[Keith Thompson]

Sorry, Keith. Perhaps I didn't explain adequately. I wasn't suggesting
the regulars then filter out anything without a && (or whatever it
might be). With no filters set up it would simply be faster to
*visually* spot messages that are far more likely not to be spam;
that's all.

Ok. In my opinion, it would add clutter without sufficient benefit.
Using a news server that does a decent job of spam filtering
(news.eternal-september.org is one example, but not the only one)
solves the same problem (for each user) without the drawbacks.
And those of us who use decent servers would just see "&&"
randomly added to subject lines with essentially *no* benefit.
(Note that "&&" can also appear in articles discussing the logical
and operator.)

I see *some* spam here, but it's a small minority of the articles I
see -- and a fair amount of it can be avoided by filtering on the
poster's name. For what's left, the subject header is far more
reliable than any special marker.

Others' opinions may differ.

 

[Lew Pitcher]

Hi all,

Actually there is quite a lot of spam here after all. How about we
prefix all our messages with some symbol or other we can all agree to
use as I've done here, so meaningful, on-topic posts can be more
readily sorted from the rubbish?

Your post advocates a

(X) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to augmenting NNTP postings. Your idea will not work. Here is why
it won't work.(One or more of the following may apply to your particular
idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state
before a bad federal law was passed.)

(X) Spammers can still use the service, so it has no net benefit.
(X) Mailing lists and other legitimate usenet uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
(X) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(X) Users of netnews will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(X) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many nntp users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential
employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for messaging
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in NNTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than NNTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
(X) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
(X) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(X) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(X) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
(X) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been
shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) NNTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
(X) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
(X) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending netnews should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(X) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!


--
Lew Pitcher

Master Codewright & JOAT-in-training | Registered Linux User #112576
http://pitcher.digitalfreehold.ca/ | GPG public key available by request
---------- Slackware - Because I know what I'm doing. ------

 

[Beej Jorgensen]

Using a news server that does a decent job of spam filtering
(news.eternal-september.org is one example, but not the only one)

I agree with Keith, here, and use the same NNTP server. The amount of
spam is minimal and not distracting.

-Beej

 

[Kenny McCormack]

However, you forgot the "indeed" or a link to Falconer's pascal
solutions.

I'm sure we could work those in (as needed).

 

[phaedrus]

THanks for your extensively well-considered response, Lew - and for
not wanting to find out where I live and burn my house down!

 

[phaedrus]

How about you learn to set up filters properly?  I don't think I saw
such a dumb arse suggestion in all my years using usenet.

OK, sorry. I was only trying to be constuctive.

 

[Jens Thoms Toerring]

OK, sorry. I was only trying to be constuctive.

No need to apologize, you only just run into one of the resident
trolls here. Just put it (this "Richard" with no surname) into
your killfile, you won't be missing anything relevant.

Regards, Jens

 

[phaedrus]

There was nothing trolling about it. It was a ridiculous suggestion.

Killfiles, scoring and anti spam filters like bogo filter are there for
a reason.

Hey pal I'm truly sorry. No offense intended!

 

[Keith Thompson]

Hey pal I'm truly sorry. No offense intended!

Good grief, he insulted you. Why are you apologizing to him?

 

[Richard Bos]

Hey pal I'm truly sorry. No offense intended!

Not on _your_ part, at least.

That said, I would phrase Keith et al.'s suggestion more strongly.
Instead of "get a better news server", I'd say "get a news server in the
first place". Google Broken Beta is not a news server, it's a bad
mockery of the bastard offspring of a news server that was forcibly
taken in all available orifices by a _very_ badly written web forum.

Richard

 

[dragan]

Hi all,

Actually there is quite a lot of spam here after all.

I think that is provider-related rather than NG-related. I feel my provider
is trying to catch me as a paying account. I'd do that, if I had f'n
MONEY!!!

 

[dragan]

You're not going to get everyone to agree to do this. Even if all
current posters agreed, new posters wouldn't be familiar with
the convention; the net result would be that people who filter
on "&&" would never see questions from newbies.

My news server is news.eternal-september.org. It's free, and it does
a reasonably good job of filtering out most spam before I see it.
There are other free servers as well.

Keith, you're "a programmer" or something and are relequated (is that a
word? it is now, cuz I used it!) to those who serve you SPAM? Do you really
thinkg that my next program I write wasn't going to be NNTP-obliterator?

You old farts annoy me.