Re: TMDA (was: new spam functionality added)

[Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net>]

* David Masterson <dmaster@synopsys.com>  on Mon, 05 Aug 2002
| Do Hotmail (or Yahoo) accounts allow autoconfirmers?

Automatic confirmation does not yet exist with TMDA, to my knowledge.  This
is all hypothetical stuff.


| Thus blacklisting.

Doesn't work with throwaway addresses.  They just pick a new one.  Black
lists do not work without constant and continuous human intervention.


| But they have to work harder to do it.

BS.  One guy needs to program around it for all spammers to benefit.

| If spammers do as you say to "get around" TMDA, the user simply
| blacklists them with the first spam to get through.  So spam, if not
| eliminated, is cut down, but the work of the spammer goes up.

That won't work because the hotmail or yahoo address used for the first
confirmation is never used again.  It is a one-shot, throwaway address.
Putting "spammer@hotmail.com" into your blacklist.  will not stop anything
from "iamnotaspammer@hotmail.com" from getting through.

| Of course, you could also do things to prevent auto-confirmers from
| working

Which defeats the purpose of automatic confirmation, by the way.

| (like random confirmation messages and rotating confirm email addresses),
| but then the regular people can't hide TMDA behind an auto-confirmer
| either.

All of which puts more work on the user.  Bad idea.

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