Re: [LIG] Blocking SPAM using Mailman

On 1/13/06, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
> Does anyone have success blocking SPAM sent to members only mailing lists that
> use mailman (version 2.1.6)?  The lists themselves aren't getting SPAM because
> it's a members only list, however, the admin/moderator is getting lots of SPAM
> in the moderation queue.

AFAIK, there are no one solutions for this. You probably need a
mixture of ways to deal with this:

1. Preventing your mail server from accepting spam in the first place.
You can configure your mail server to use one of the popular Realtime
Blackhole Lists (RBL) to reject spam originating from open relays and
such. This will, I think, take care of about 30-40% of your problem.

2. Scanning incoming mail. It is highly recommended that your mail
server run spam checks on mails it has accepted to see if they are
likely to be spam. Spamassassin and DSpam are good solutions. This
will take care of an additional 30-40% of your problem.

3. Discarding non-member posts. Finally, if you, the mailing list
administrator / moderator, really do not want to spend the time going
through non-member posts held for approval, you can configure mailman
to discard / bounce non-member posts.

> I've seen the ban from (subscribing to) list options and add to discard list,
> however, the emails are randomized and I'm not sure if blacklisting dynamic IP
> addresses is a good solution either.  I've even tried using some of the regular
> expression legacy SPAM options based on subjects, with some success.

Your problem is not spambots subscribing to lists, spamming and then
disappearing. Your problem seems to be administrative overheards with
non-member spam. If you want, you can also do a "Approve new users
before subscription" thinggy as well.

> I've read through some of the mailman documentation, but couldn't find much
> usefulness regarding SPAM filters.  Any suggestions that are known to work are
> welcome.

IIRC, mailman also has some basic spam filtering capabilities. I would
rather depend on RBLs and SMTP spam filters than this.

Thaths
--
"A gun is not a weapon Marge, it's a tool. Like a butcher knife, or a
       harpoon, or... or an alligator." -- Homer J. Simpson


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