OT Re: [Nottingham] Re: Tux Games mail is still unread

[Simon Huggins]

'ello Mike

On Tue, May 25, 2004 at 05:52:30PM +0100, Mike Cardwell wrote:
> On Tue, 25 May 2004, Simon Huggins wrote:
> >> I wrote a similar system my self, and it has been very very effective.
> >> Any email that isn't from someone on my whitelist is filtered through
> >> spamassassin. Any emails that spamassasin rejects gets filtered into a
> >> separate mailbox, and the sender is sent an email telling them how to
> >> add themselves to my whitelist so I will get their email. I go weeks
> >> without getting a single spam email sometimes.
> > That sort of whitelisting will allow viruses through unfettered unless
> > you do some scanning before trusting your whitelist.
> I read my email with pine. That isn't a problem.

Well you still have to delete/deal with the viruses.

> >> Certainly solved something for me...
> > And how often do you go through the mails that people don't bother
> > authorising?
> I probably glance over my spam mailbox for about 30 seconds once a
> week to check that nothing legitimate has been blocked.

I don't even do that any more.

I do spam/unsure/ham filtering.  The spam really is spam, the ham really
is ham and the unsures are mostly spam but the occasional good message
pops up there.

> > I guess coupling it with spamassassin is less of a risk than just
> > trusting a whitelist but I still find the penalty on the senders of
> > mail unacceptable.
> The sender only receives an email if they haven't emailed me
> previously, and if spamassassin blocks them. It is very very rare that
> anyone has to manually add themselves to my white list. Probably only
> happened 5/6 times in the 6 or so months I've been running it, and I
> get a fair amount of email each day. The "penalty" you are refering
> to, if it's a penalty at all, is insignificant compared to the gains.

It's insignificant to *you*.  I think your system is better as you're
combining a challenge response with spamassassin checks before people
see your mail but you're still imposing a penalty.

Maybe you don't want to see mail from random people.  I occasionally get
mail about odd web pages I've written about linuxy things or people
submitting patches to things I've written.  I really wouldn't want to
force them to have to jump through hoops mostly because I don't think
they would.

> I find it quite strange that you are so adamant that there are 0 gains
> by using such a system when there blatently are...

Not that there are 0 gains for you.  I'm sure there are.  You'll
certainly cut the number of emails you read down.  It's just that this
isn't necessarily the same as cutting out all the crap in your inbox and
leaving the good stuff.

Simon.

-- 
- You have saved our lives.  We are eternally grateful.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah whatever.