Hey Greg, Can you confirm that people _subscribed_ to the list experience a spam filter now? I thought my emails were getting spammed due to not being subscribed, but it turns out this address is, actually, subscribed; I was told this when I attempted subscribing. In other news, I haven't been receiving mails from the list recently (recent mails in the archive aren't in my inbox yet), not sure if it matters. Karl
Hi, Karl. The list was a bit quiet yesterday. Perhaps cpunks were outside in the Big Blue, or otherwise engaged. I sent a note that you should have received. On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 12:11:26PM -0400, Karl wrote:
Hey Greg,
Can you confirm that people _subscribed_ to the list experience a spam filter now? I thought my emails were getting spammed due to not being subscribed, but it turns out this address is, actually, subscribed; I was told this when I attempted subscribing.
Yes, there are a few standard spam filters and related mechanisms on the server. This includes Spamassassin, DKIM, SPF, and DMARC. These have been in place since the list moved to pglaf.org a few years ago. Just in the past days, in Spamassassin, I turned off use of the blacklists, since they have occasionally been problematic. I have not observed any messages from you that were flagged as spam or rejected. However, sometimes messages are rejected before they get to the list or to me - if this happens to you, then (a) you will get a bounce from the pglaf.org (a.k.a., cpunks.org) server, and (b) the message won't go into the archive. None of this is nefarious or specific to cpunks. Other than the change mentioned to remove the blacklists from Spamassassin, all of this stuff is out-of-the-box with Ubuntu.
In other news, I haven't been receiving mails from the list recently (recent mails in the archive aren't in my inbox yet), not sure if it matters.
Yes, you are subscribed. Only subscribers can submit, and your messages are going through and in the archive. If you are not certain whether your message went to the list, first check the archive via https://lists.cpunks.org (no login required). If you are not getting copies of your own messages, there is a setting for this that everyone can select for their own subscription. Use the web interface at https://lists.cpunks.org to login to the list and see your settings. You can opt to get a copy of your own messages, and you can also get an "ack" email message when your message was posted. The default is to *not* get a copy of your own messages, and to *not* get an acknowledgment. HOWEVER, gmail absolutely positively will not show you a copy of your own message!! Even if you set the list (via Mailman) to send you a copy. It will silently discard it or otherwise mask it. This is a gmail thing that is well-known and does not have a workaround that I've heard about. If you are seeing other people's messages in the list archive, but not getting them in your inbox, the first thing to check is your Gmail Spam folder. If messages still don't arrive within a few minutes, send me details and I can check the server logs to see whether delivery was attempted and what happened. Greg
On Tue, 25 May 2021 09:48:20 -0700 Greg Newby <gbnewby@pglaf.org> wrote:
None of this is nefarious or specific to cpunks. Other than the change mentioned to remove the blacklists from Spamassassin, all of this stuff is out-of-the-box with Ubuntu.
Well, out-of-the-box ubuntu censors cock.li, which I would describe as nefarious. And it means that bona fide users of ubuntu end up unwillingly censoring cock.li. Which looks nefarious to me as well =P
On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 02:04:58PM -0300, juan wrote:
On Tue, 25 May 2021 09:48:20 -0700 Greg Newby <gbnewby@pglaf.org> wrote:
None of this is nefarious or specific to cpunks. Other than the change mentioned to remove the blacklists from Spamassassin, all of this stuff is out-of-the-box with Ubuntu.
Well, out-of-the-box ubuntu censors cock.li, which I would describe as nefarious. And it means that bona fide users of ubuntu end up unwillingly censoring cock.li. Which looks nefarious to me as well =P
I don't think that's accurate, otherwise the censorship would have been happening earlier. The mechanism that blocked the cock.li domain is the blacklist. Spamassassin is a separate project than Ubuntu, which loads the blacklists by default. The blacklists are, in turn, separate projects. Personally, as mentioned earlier, I am not a fan of blacklists. They are too easy to get on, and too difficult to get off of. They seem to have close to no ability to respond to reports of false positives (i.e., when a domain ends up on a blacklist, but should not be). Good riddance to the blacklists for the cpunks list! ~ Greg
On 5/25/21, Greg Newby <gbnewby@pglaf.org> wrote:
Hi, Karl. The list was a bit quiet yesterday. Perhaps cpunks were outside in the Big Blue, or otherwise engaged. I sent a note that you should have received.
I found it (but never received it): https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2021-May/087696.html Guess it's an issue with me receiving things via gmail.
On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 12:11:26PM -0400, Karl wrote:
Hey Greg,
Can you confirm that people _subscribed_ to the list experience a spam filter now? I thought my emails were getting spammed due to not being subscribed, but it turns out this address is, actually, subscribed; I was told this when I attempted subscribing.
Yes, there are a few standard spam filters and related mechanisms on the server. This includes Spamassassin, DKIM, SPF, and DMARC. These have been in place since the list moved to pglaf.org a few years ago.
When you said "Any subscriber email address can post anything" at https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2021-May/087482.html I thought you meant that there as no spam filtering of subscribed posts. I infer I misunderstood. My perception of cypherpunks has been of a list where no posts are censored, it being up to the users to filter their mails. Do you have a memory of this?
I have not observed any messages from you that were flagged as spam or rejected.
Do you receive this link to a message of mine that was rejected? https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2021-May/087594.html
If you are seeing other people's messages in the list archive, but not getting them in your inbox, the first thing to check is your Gmail Spam folder. If messages still don't arrive within a few minutes, send me details and I can check the server logs to see whether delivery was attempted and what happened.
I have my spam filter configured to prevent all cpunks list messages from being spammed, so it's something else. Maybe routing delay. Hey, did you ever receive the attached e-mail? I'm not finding it in the list archives. It was sent on April 30th.
apologies for the attachment. I found the email archived at https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2021-April/087395.html . i'm probably suppressing frustration. i have not received any cypherpunks emails since the 23rd.
On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 01:10:50PM -0400, Karl wrote:
On 5/25/21, Greg Newby <gbnewby@pglaf.org> wrote:
Hi, Karl. The list was a bit quiet yesterday. Perhaps cpunks were outside in the Big Blue, or otherwise engaged. I sent a note that you should have received.
I found it (but never received it): https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2021-May/087696.html
Guess it's an issue with me receiving things via gmail.
The Gmail filter that Tom suggested might help. As mentioned, I can try to diagnose messages that don't go through, but it's tough to do unless I know the specific message in question, and when it's sent. This is because we get around 1M lines/day in the mail log, invariably including multiple similar messages to the cypherpunks subscriber list. Yes, I realize it's hard to know when a message does NOT arrive, unless you are watching the archive at the same time as you are watching your inbox. More:
On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 12:11:26PM -0400, Karl wrote:
Hey Greg,
Can you confirm that people _subscribed_ to the list experience a spam filter now? I thought my emails were getting spammed due to not being subscribed, but it turns out this address is, actually, subscribed; I was told this when I attempted subscribing.
Yes, there are a few standard spam filters and related mechanisms on the server. This includes Spamassassin, DKIM, SPF, and DMARC. These have been in place since the list moved to pglaf.org a few years ago.
When you said "Any subscriber email address can post anything" at https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2021-May/087482.html I thought you meant that there as no spam filtering of subscribed posts. I infer I misunderstood.
I over-generalized. It's true if the spam filtering doesn't reject it, or another failure condition, like temporary network outages. Or exceeding the max message size (I think it's 20M). What I really meant not "can post" but "is permitted to post." Or, "is not restricted from posting based on topic etc." More simply stated, there's no moderation of list traffic, other than the types of automation that Mailman (the list manager software), Postfix (the message transfer agent) or related elements of the email stack apply.
My perception of cypherpunks has been of a list where no posts are censored, it being up to the users to filter their mails. Do you have a memory of this?
Sure (I've been on the list since the year 2000 or so). One way this used to be handled was with remailers. Some remailers were completely unfiltered - for example, they would accept random SMTP connections to port 25 and not do any checks that the email headers were valid or accurate. John Gilmore's toad.com was canonical for this, but not the only member of the remailer circle. Subscribers would choose a remailer to subscribe to. In addition to choosing a level of comfort for spam and some noisier subscribers, the remailer system made cypherpunks more resistant to state-level shutdowns. (It didn't make it less susceptible to surveillance, particullarly, and it also made the whole system more prone to various problems like delivery failure and message loops.) There were other remailers that had different procedures (i.e., stricter), which translated into less spam (in the "unsolicited commercial email" sense). For awhile, there was at least one moderated remailer where a human tried to only let the "good" stuff through. Today, the cypherpunks list doesn't have anyone doing censorship. However, it does use a set of standard mechanisms for limiting abuse. I already mentioned Spamassassin (one of many, many spam filters), and the trio of standards: DMARC, DKIM and SPF. In addition, the server enables TLS and a few other things to make it more difficult to spoof someone else's email address (i.e., to send email as bill.gates@microsoft.com or somesuch; or email the cypherpunks list claiming to be a subscriber -- a common way, in olden times, of sending spam or of impersonating someone else). A less restricted remailer is definitely still possible, and could interoperate alongside the current system, just like remailers used to interoperate. Someone (not me) would need to set that up.
I have not observed any messages from you that were flagged as spam or rejected.
Do you receive this link to a message of mine that was rejected? https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2021-May/087594.html
Dunno - I don't keep copies of most individual messages to the list.
If you are seeing other people's messages in the list archive, but not getting them in your inbox, the first thing to check is your Gmail Spam folder. If messages still don't arrive within a few minutes, send me details and I can check the server logs to see whether delivery was attempted and what happened.
I have my spam filter configured to prevent all cpunks list messages from being spammed, so it's something else. Maybe routing delay.
Cool. Greg
I am not receiving any emails from this list at all and am effectively banned by something in the delivery chain. It's possible it could be corrupt filters in my configuration that I haven't noticed.
Here is one of the emails I have not received: https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2021-May/087718.html
Messages would get sent to spam if it weren't for a filter I've created. So yes, this is a common issue. On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 18:12, Karl <gmkarl@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey Greg,
Can you confirm that people _subscribed_ to the list experience a spam filter now? I thought my emails were getting spammed due to not being subscribed, but it turns out this address is, actually, subscribed; I was told this when I attempted subscribing.
In other news, I haven't been receiving mails from the list recently (recent mails in the archive aren't in my inbox yet), not sure if it matters.
Karl
participants (4)
-
Greg Newby -
juan -
Karl -
Tom Busby