[conspire] Mailing list servers and the spam problem

[Scott DuBois]

On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 02:04:55AM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> Scott DuBois, I note with interest and approval your project at EBLUG to 
> construct a mailing list server for that group.  That included a working
> meeting in Fremont this past Wednesday:  I'd have come over, except 
> Deirdre and I were driving down to Los Angeles for SCALE that evening.

Yeah, "one of these days" I'll have the money and time to attend one of those. I
have an education debt now, a dependent 5year old, and only working PT.
Hopefully things will change for the better this year and I'll be able to
participate in more activities as such.

> You (EBLUG) are using the Postfix MTA, which is a very good piece of
> software.  I strongly suspect you will also be using GNU Mailman.

We are to (both) but we're only "so far" into it. As one can notice from the
Google Groups deployment, not a lot of mailing list activity from our members.
This has been more of an exercise on my part to learn how to make it "fly" than
anything else so that _maybe_ someday I may help someone else do it or be able
to look someone in the eye and say "yes, I've built one of those".

The reality being I don't have a place that is donating server time so I'm
paying $5/mo out of my _own_ pocket just to have the VPS at DigitalOcean which
also serves my uses as a SOCKS5. So outside of personal accomplishment and port
forwarding anonymity, there isn't a lot of motivation to press on with building
a mailing list that will only produce a level of "spam recepticle" headache I
_don't_ need. This isn't to say "no" mailing list, just not on a VPS.

As I understand it, that $5/mo doesn't include traffic rates which will add to
the cost should the thing go "live" and start receiving spam that would have to
be dealt with.

We "could" switch _everything_ to _any_ platform at the drop of a hat at this
time and it wouldn't matter much.

> Aside:  Deirdre's made an interesting and worthwhile point for user
> groups that are _not_ prepared (or no longer prepared) to host their own
> mailing lists:  If you must outsource mailing lists, there's an
> alternative that's _much_ better than Google Groups in most ways:
> Mailchimp.
> 
> o  no advertising
> o  free of charge for up to 1000 subscribers
> o  slick administrative control panel includes useful functions
>    like advance-scheduled mailings (e.g., for meeting reminders).
> o  can have multiple admins with access optionally validated by 
>    two-factor authentication.

This sounds good!

If it's "free" and we can have multiple admins, this may very well be the
"better" alternative for us; I'll look into it this week.

I tried contacting Grant Bowman about the other mailing list platform you
mentioned previously used by DVLUG but have not heard back yet. He's a busy guy
so it may take a while but I want to follow up on that one too.

> Google Groups broadcasts 'targeted advertising' at subscribers as
> additions to the body text of people's mailing list postings, with a net
> effect that can only be described as tacky at best.

Well, I deployed that as it was "quick and dirty" which I figured was better
than nothing. However, as I mentioned, considering the use it gets, I'm at the
"why bother" point. The same goes for the IRC channel; Why bother since no one
ever shows up? I'm always "hoping" that someday, someone, will walk through the
door at a meeting that has the same level of ambition and motivation I have
although I'm beginning to wonder if I'm just one of those "rare few" who who
simply cares enough to want to "do something about it".

> On the arguably-mostly-minus side:
> 
> o  Mailchimp does a number of things to track subscribers.  All 
>    postings are sent as Multipart-Alternative, with the HTML portion
>    getting 1x1 pixel 'Web bugs', and all URLs in transmitted messages 
>    get transformed, Constant Contact-style, into ones with hash strings
>    individual to each recipient.  The (entirely overt) intent is to 
>    help the mailing list admin with copious statistics about how many
>    (and which) subscribers opened the mails, whether they clicked on
>    URLs in them, etc.  Mailchimp is a very effective tool for 
>    relatively small marketing campaigns.

Eh, falls in the category of "no free lunch". There is _usually_ a catch that
comes with "free".

> Scott, getting back to the EBLUG project, as I warned you in advance, 
> antispam is the only actually difficult part.  If you'd used Exim4, you 
> could have used the Eximconfig docs as a detailed punchlist.  Since
> you're using Postfix, that's not possible, but you _can_ rely heavily on
> those docs as a general guide.
> 
> I would recommend you do that.

We may still. Like I said, there has been little ambition of getting the project
to fly at all hence the reason we/I have been tinkering with it for so long. I
would ditch the $5/mo bill but having the VPS around is beneficial to me for
multiple reasons although I hear there are much cheaper alternatives if one
looks around.

If there were a _real_ push, and cooperative effort, from the rest of the group to
"want" this, I would be more active in having it up and running. As it is, our
group is more of a "hangout" once a month with other Linux and Open Source geeks
than anything else. Not much push for guest speakers, collaborative projects, or
anything of the like. That's why I get involved with multiple groups besides
mine.

> Anyway, summary:  You as the designer and operator of a machine not only
> doing full-service SMTP but also running an MLM are going to get caught
> in the crossfire of the spam war.  Expect it.  Be prepared to be
> flexible in some cases (whitelisting) but in other cases to draw the
> line and say 'no'.  And know that all antispam tricks have both costs
> and limits in their effectiveness.
> 
> Welcome to the trenches.  Try not to get shot by either side.

Yeah, weighing the pros and cons of whether or not it's worth while to continue
the project weighs on the back of my mind continually. I'm the only person in
the group that seems interested and based on the evidence that there is "no"
traffic to the existing Google deployment just reminds me that there is little
motivation to press on outside of my own ambitions. The potential for real use
is low (if existant) while the headache from spam is a gurantee.

Considering the afore mentioned, a service such as Mailchimp would seem to be a
more "rational" approach. Then, if a mailing list "did" in fact begin to be
used, consider deploying our own.

-- 
Scott DuBois           "If you can't explain it simply, you
BSIT/SE	                don't understand it well enough."
EFF ID: 1731778                                 -- Einstein



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