DragonFlyBSD Project Update - colo upgrade, future trends

Mon Jul 29 10:10:27 PDT 2019

On Mon, 29 Jul 2019 at 10:27, Matthew Dillon <dillon at backplane.com> wrote:

> The mailing list software has been less than stellar, but the bigger
> problem is in areas that we have very little control over.  We have no
> control over other people's spam filters, and the mailing list software
> itself has to deal with a constant influx of spam (which is why you have to
> be subscribed, now).   It is almost impossible to manage it any other way.
> Nearly all of the internet has moved on to WWW based forum-like mechanisms
> because they are a whole lot easier to manage.  We're going to have to as
> well.
>
> I feel that we do not have a choice here.  Privately-run mail systems, in
> general, are almost dead due to the spam load.  I have to forward my own
> personal domain email through GMail just to be able to continue using it
> and my GMail spam mailbox consistently contains more than 3000 spams in it
> (30-day expiration, so ... 100+ spams per day). And that doesn't count the
> ones Google auto-deletes immediately or the ones my smtp server discards.
>  I've tried everything possible to keep my personal domain and dragonfly's
> domain email usable but its an impossible task.
>
> -Matt
>

Yes, but it works on OpenBSD.org — the confirmation emails do the trick,
and are a much better option than simply discarding emails from
non-subscribers.  Greylisting through PF spamd is also an option.
Personally, I do passive fingerprinting based on OS in my PF(4) spamd
setup, which means that most of my mail isn't even subject to greylisting
(e.g., Linux and BSD go directly to the real SMTP daemon, whereas all the
botnets have to go through spamd first).  Another option is to use
greytrapping, including through a secondary low-priority MX IP address.

Yes, I agree; the mailing list software may be less than stellar, but it's
still better than any forum software I've ever encountered.  If folks want
forum-like functionality, there's already Reddit and Lobsters available as
options.  (Plus, forum software is not exactly immune from spam, either.)

C.
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