Thank you, Barbara (and also Pete Weiss and Rich Greenberg) for your
kind letter.  Pete and Rich suggested making all listowners QUIET, with
a note in the &LISTNAME-request autoresponse saying that no human would
see the message (and giving another address, in the knowledge that only
subscribers to my list would read this.  The trouble with that solution
is that I've everywhere urged people with problems to write to the
&LISTNAME-request  address.  I'd deserve fifty lashes if I then refused
even to receive such solicited mail (from people WITH PROBLEMS!).

Barbara, filters are very useful, but do remember that mail YOU and I
receive at our &LISTNAME-request
address is not affected by filtering the addresses of the originators.
All &LISTNAME-request  mail  is RELAYED to listowners by LISTSERV!

Version 1.8e allows us to reject posting from non-subscribers
(SEND=Private).  It should be a simple matter to make a slight change in
1.8e to enable us to make the &LISTNAME-request PRIVATE as well.  Then
we would automatically receive all &LISTNAME-requests from subscribers,
with NON-subscribers (including spammers) receiving only the
&LISTNAME-request  autoreply, which I would revise  to ask that
recipients contact an alternate address (a personal one, that we can all
be certain mass spammers wouldn't bother with).  How about it, Eric & Co.?

Harry Dewey, Beltsville, Maryland USA

Barbara Passmore wrote:

>While I may not be giving a proper answer, there are other solutions to
>spam, such as putting a filter on your own mailer (I have many) or using a
>personal spam program, which I also use.  This program will bounce the
>message, delete it before opening although a preview can be looked at, as
>well as blacklist sender.  I have had few spams to *-request but have caught
>all of them this way without recurrences when I have had the program
>running.
>
>Barbara Passmore
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Rich Greenberg" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 11:55 AM
>Subject: Re: [LSTOWN-L] SPAMMERS are using my &LISTNAME-request@&MYHOST Big
>Time!]
>
>
>
>
>>On: Sun, Oct 05, 2003 at 10:23:25AM -0400,Pete Weiss Wrote:
>>
>>} listname-request currently generates an auto-ack message.  This can be
>>} done by the kinds of viruses that "spoof" the FROM: field resulting in
>>} unwanted mail to the FROM address (if it really exists), of if does not
>>} exist, a bounce back to the listowner.
>>}
>>} I recommend as a reduction technique, updating your list's template
>>}
>>} >>> REQACK1 Your message to &LISTNAME-request@&MYHOST
>>} .qq
>>} [the rest of the original template]
>>}
>>} Obviously this doesn't solve the problem of spam to the -request
>>
>>
>address.
>
>
>>}
>>} Though I've never tried it (and it may have unintended bad consequences,
>>} esp for non-SPAM mail), you could make all list-owners QUIET
>>}
>>} OWNER= quiet:,[log in to unmask]
>>
>>While either of these would help, I don't think you want both of them
>>because an unintended bad consequence would be that mail to
>>listname-request (which is a "well known" address) would vanish into a
>>black hole.  If you make all owners quiet, put in the ack message that
>>no human will see thier message and give an alternate address.
>>
>>