On Fri, May 05, 2000 at 02:51:01PM -0400, Trei, Peter wrote:
> One alternative to changing the email address is to have a nonce
> which must appear in the post for it to be forwarded to end users.
> Change it once a month or so. Make it either a random string of
> digits, or a string unlikely to occur in a post by accident.
I'd prefer to see it in a seperate header line, as the
Subject: is already pretty full (hopefully it's full of
information!).
I think that adding an extra header like
X-cypherpunks-codeword: akjshkash
is pretty easy. Codewords could change monthly- often enough
to keep out most spammers, slow enough so that people don't
have to change it often. The codeword doesn't have to
be all that secure, a random word from /usr/dict/words
would do... it's going to be public anyhow.
I think that the codeword line should be automatically added to posts
that are from list members (subscribers to that particular CDR node)
by the list software. This is similar to the 'closed list' where only
subscribers can post, except in this case it's not really closed, as
anyone can add the codeword header manually. But it would keep most
list members from having to diddle their mail agents while immediately
marking posts from non-members (many of which are spam).
I also think that the CDR nodes should not drop posts that do not have
the codeword, at least not right away. It's pretty easy for list members
to filter for posts that do not have it and stash them in a different
mail folder. Procmail lets you do this easily, I expect that the other
filters would also. After a few months, if it looks like it's working, then
the CDR nodes could drop posts without the codeword.
If the CDR node operators think that this is a good idea, I'd be willing
to maintain a web page that explains the added header line, why it's
there, how it's used, how to add it in different mail agents (I'll need
help there from people who use different mail agents). And I'll write
a script to generate the codeword and put it up on the web page (and
post it to the list when it changes).
--
Eric Murray www.lne.com/~ericm ericm at the site lne.com PGP keyid:E03F65E5
