Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

At 12:32 PM -0800 12/31/96, Hal Finney wrote:

>We might also want to consider the paradoxical possibility that if we
>remove the junk, the list will die!  At least now we are constantly
>reminded that the cypherpunks list exists.  Other lists like the
>cryptography and coderpunks can sometimes go for quite a while without
>any posts at all.  On CP you have the sense of a dynamic community where
>you can hope for a response to your posts, more so than on a list which
>is silent for days at a time.

A very good point. This is what I meant in my last message by saying that
moderated lists can become "moribund." I've seen a bunch of nominally
"quality" lists simply die the death of inactivity because the volume was
so low.

Cypherpunks is like a crowded coffee house, or bar, with people having
various conversations, sometimes shouting, and with debate raging.

It's easier to filter out things I don't want to hear than it is to
_induce_ things I _do_ want to hear! And as I said in my last message, even
with 100 messages a day, this is easily manageable with filtering tools and
a quick hand on the "delete" key.

Massive spam attacks, or denial of service attacks, such as we have seen
several times in the last year or so, are more problematic than mere
"off-topic" or "not what I wanted to read" posts. Solutions to this would
be nice, but I'm not holding my breath.

(It seems to me that majordomo could be hacked to either recognize
subscriptions with some indication of "list" in the name, and not allow the
list to be subscribed to other lists. Not that this would always work (as
"cypherpunks@toad.com" so clearly shows).)

--Tim May


Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
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