Good Morning,
I run a list for our tech support department that sends an auto-reply to the original sender. My problem is this e-mail address gets a boatload of spam. But when the messages come through smartlist has stripped the original message headers. Is there any way to keep the original message headers so that I can use them to block spam?
Thanks in advance for any help
Jerry Sloan Network/System Admin fP Technologies, Inc
Hi all,
Is there any reason not to change the To: -field in rejected messages as they are sent to the list maintainer? It is sometimes confusing to the maintainer as it isn't obvious at first whether the message has been passed or not, especially for those using mailreaders that won't show X-Diagnostic: header lines by default. Also, X-Diagnostic: lines could have been in the original message, making the confusion even worse.
Changing the To: header seems easy enough, modifying the recipe near the end of rc.request that sends the message to maintainer, for example like this:
:0 w | formail -R"From X-From_:" -iDate: -iReturn-Receipt-To: -iRead-Receipt-To: \ -iAcknowledge-To: -i"To: ERROR-${listaddr}" | \ $SENDMAIL $fOPT $sendmailOPTnorm $sendmailOPTp $maintainer
But the question is, would that be a good idea? If not, why not? Any better suggestions on how to make bounces stand out?
At 4:44 AM -0500 1/10/02, Tapani Tarvainen is rumored to have typed:
It is sometimes confusing to the maintainer as it isn't obvious at first whether the message has been passed or not, especially for those using mailreaders that won't show X-Diagnostic: header lines by default.
He, he...seems to me it's easier to change a damaged mail client that won't allow the user to determine what headers should be shown/hidden to a more reasonable one that will. (I'm using a version of Eudora Pro from 1997 that allows me to choose what headers are hidden, so it isn't exactly a difficult nor a new thing.)
Also, X-Diagnostic: lines could have been in the original message, making the confusion even worse.
But remembering that X-Diagnostic: headers are added from top to bottom, the order in which they were added is obvious. (Er...I am kinda curious how a rejected message could already have X-Diagnostic: headers when it comes in, though. I mean, are you bouncing rejected messages back to the list in any situation? Or are you suggesting someone who is posting to your list would add an X-Diagnostic: header field for some reason?)
But the question is, would that be a good idea?
I wouldn't do it myself, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone else, either, but there's no reason _you_ shouldn't do it if it makes your life easier. The whole _point_ to using cool open-source software is that you can make it work _your_ way instead of mine, Philip's, or anyone else's. The hacks like this that are universally advantageous eventually end up as part of the release code, while hacks that aren't can still be used by those who find them a help.
Any better suggestions on how to make bounces stand out?
I suppose you could munge the subject (formail -i"Subject: ***REJECTED FOR STUPID SYNTAX!!!!!!!!") if you needed something that yelled at you enough; I use that method to mark messages rejected by the content-type or over-quote pre-filters which are returned to me. But since I'm not a real fan of munging subjects, _it_ isn't something I'd recommend to others, either. I'm embarassed to admit I do it because I'm lazy; even though an X-Diagnostic: header would be the "correct" way of reporting the problem, I want to see the reason for the rejection without even opening the message.
Charlie
On Wed, Jan 09, 2002 at 09:46:07AM -0500, Jerry Sloan wrote:
I run a list for our tech support department that sends an auto-reply to the original sender. My problem is this e-mail address gets a boatload of spam. But when the messages come through smartlist has stripped the original message headers. Is there any way to keep the original message headers so that I can use them to block spam?
The official way to look at the raw articles posted to your list is with the get-archive function. I keep my archive limit set at 100 for this very purpose (I think the default was 2 or somesuch). Then you can retrieve what you're interested in, with all their received lines, etc.
I grew tired of my list server sending the "Not on the accept list" complaint to its spammers, letting them know more than they need. So I have procmail filters in my list (and digest) rc.local.[rs]00 files that trap spam and divert it to $maintainer. The filters have bypass approval capability, so if a legitimate poster sends what looks like spam, I can send it on. A simple shell script automates the "approving" of such resends, so the whole thing is painless.
95% of the spam is not directly addressed to my list, so that's an obvious first recipe. Beyond that, the filtering gets interesting, and procmail's weighted scoring can help you a lot to develop reasonable filtering strategies, based on the sorts of spam popular in your neighborhood. Remember to use procmail's INCLUDERC facility to centralize your recipes among your lists' various rc.local.x00 files.
Hope all this rambling helps,
Jim
smartlist@lists.rwth-aachen.de
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Charlie Summers -
Jerry Sloan -
Jim -
Tapani Tarvainen