Mailing list issues (was Re: [PLUG] The spirit also took Scrooge)

[Bill Jonas <bill@billjonas.com>]

I just wanted to make a couple of comments, since I'm one of the mailing
list admins.

On Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 11:40:08AM -0500, Charles Stack wrote:
> I unsubscribed from OpenSSL after receiving over 100 virus laden
> messages (and countless SPAM) and the list manager failed to correct
> the problem.

I felt that requiring admin approval for this person's mail after one
mail was a bit extreme.  I was suprised, though, to see a second.  I
thought that surely after two, that the problem would get fixed.  I see
your point, though, and am holding up messages from this individual for
approval until I hear from the party in question that they've corrected
the problem.

> Netfilter also had the same sort of problem, but they proactively
> installed a virus scanner to eliminate most of the nasties.  Should not PLUG
> be doing the same?

We don't control the server which hosts the mailing list and the web
page.  The resources are graciously provided by Nothinbut.net.  (I
wonder if that would be considered a PLUG for them...)  I was under the
impression that all mail to the list was getting virus scanned.  I
checked my personal archive, and it turns out that October 8 was the
last day that happened.  Apparently there was a configuration change on
that day.  (BTW, the headers to look for are X-Virus-Scanned and
X-VirusScan.)


> Why not simply strip out all attachments and eliminate HTML based
> e-mail prior to broadcasting the message?  Then, these types of
> messages will not be a bother any longer and you won't see rants like
> this one on the subject.

The idea of disallowing HTML has been kicked around on the list before.
I don't recall that a clear concensus was reached.  Simply stripping the
attachment is an option that wasn't considered.

One big problem with stripping all attachments is that it would remove
PGP/GPG signatures sent by RFC3156-compliant mailers.

An obstacle to mucking about much with filtering is that I don't see a
configuration option for that in Mailman, which is the mailing list
software we're using.  I'm certainly open to suggestions as to other
mailing list software that people have used, or filters to pass the
message through.  If someone who knows Python wants to hack on Mailman
for a bit, that'd be fine, too.

-- 
Bill Jonas    *    bill@billjonas.com    *    http://www.billjonas.com/

Developer/SysAdmin for hire!   See http://www.billjonas.com/resume.html

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