[Pan-users] Re: RE: Access provider, email provider, and Pan

[Beartooth]

On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 20:31:39 +0000, Duncan wrote:

> Beartooth <address@hidden> posted
> address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Sat, 17
> Jun 2006 16:44:37 -0400:
> 
>> Actually, I was thinking of making one like "<Beartooth (at)
>> adelphia.net>," only with my real address (I.e., the one I mostly use)
>> instead of the adelphia.net one. Bad idea??
> 
> Not necessarily bad... just recognize that there are many
> address-harvester bots out there looking for new addresses to spam.  If
> you change your address frequently enough for that not to be an issue, or
> if you have good enough spam filters (or keyword filters like I use on the
> news address, but I still munge it), or if you only use the address on a
> limited few private newsgroups (not distributed off the server you are on,
> like many ISP groups), or if you simply don't care about getting tens to
> hundreds of spams a day, then using a real "in the clear" address
> shouldn't be a problem.

What I've always considered my "real" address has very good spam filters
-- much better than adelphia, which I've laways considered ephemeral. I've
also just gotten a new one, or several new ones, which I'm going to have
to learn to use, and doing that will take a while; but one of the best
authorities I know of on email says it has good filters. And I think I
know now what dedicated addresses are ...
 
> If it is a problem, I'd suggest a dedicated address used only for news
> (so you can change it if it gets too bad), possibly of the form
> news.beartooth (or n3w5.b34rt00th maybe, if you want to avoid some of
> the dictionary attacks) at adelphia.munged.net.munged, for the reasons I
> outlined.

Ver-r-ry interesstingg : does the old numbers-that-look-like-letters trick
actually still do any good?? I'd've guessed the dictionary attack
bots'd've incorporated it by now ...

>>> Here, I actually use a dedicated address for my (non-gmane) news
>>> address as well.  [...]
>> 
>> What is a dedicated address when it's at home??
> 
> My ISP allows up to seven mail addresses per account.  I use one
> specifically for news, of the form news.username at... so I can, as I
> explained, use a keyword filter.  

OK, the new address, if I decide to use it for newsgroups, will let me do
something like that -- which, I agree, is certainly an attraction.

> All my news posts have instructions
> for both unmunging the address and using the keyword, so (1) there's
> less spam because the address is only posted in munged form, more
> difficult for the address harvester bots to process, and (2) even when
> they do get it, the spam is easily sorted out because it doesn't have
> the keyword in the subject line, as instructed by my sig.  

See my comment below -- the example would help a lot. Where can I find one??

> I've had
> absolutely zero spam on that address that got the keyword right,
> although I do get some that gets auto-filtered because it doesn't have
> the keyword.
> 
> Another alternative I've seen, for those that actually control their own
> domain, is "expiring" addresses of the form news-200606 at... (for June
> 2006), [....]

I have a friend who was doing that for a while. Sounded like work to me --
and afaict, he seems to've gone to your other method, above ...

The only .sig I've seen from you for some time is 

'Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman'

Did you change it some time back, and then forget you had? (If so, welcome
to the club!) Or is it everywhere but Gmane -- which is the only venue
where I seem to run into you, or at least recognize you? 

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, PhD, Neo-Redneck, Double Retiree,
Not Quite Clueless Linux Power User : Fedora Core 5 [etc]
I have precious (very precious) little idea where up is.