DISQUS

Lupus · 5 years ago

The main problem I have with white-listing services is the fact that I'm subscribed to many (game-development mostly) mailing lists, which receive traffic from many different people. I think the bounces go back to the list admin rather than the original poster, but still I wouldn't want to irritate them with a validation email. I think to be any use I'd require the same set of filter criteria I have available now to flag as 'good senders' automatically based on phrase-in-subject, phrase-in-message, etc.

Carlo Zottmann · 5 years ago

As long as the messages of one particular mailing list have one common denominator (same keywords/phrases in the subject or body), the keywords whitelists will cover you.

[Quote] "This is the whitelist of words or phrases contained anywhere in an E-mail message. If one or more of these words in the list below are found in an E-mail, a verification E-mail will not be sent back to the original sender and the E-mail will be left in your inbox." [Quote]

Morn · 5 years ago

I'm sorry, but I still strongly disagree with this way of fighting spam. If this is the only way we can get a 100% spam free email service, it doesn't mean email is saved, it means spam has successfully destroyed it.

Carlo Zottmann · 5 years ago

Yes, I know. Still, it works for me, and for now, I'm happy with it. I agree that it doesn't save email as a medium, far from it, but different problems need different tools. As long as there isn't a way to stop spam at its source (and there isn't), but I am still dependant on email, choosing tools to minimize my hassle is a viable option. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Morn · 5 years ago

The point is that while it may minimize your hassle, it increases others'. Are we going to end up with a net where I have to reply to some verification mail/click on some verification link every time I email someone new? I hope not.

Interestingly enough, IM networks have been doing this for ages, and often better than what it would look like with email. On ICQ, you can automatically discard messages coming from people not on your contact list, and Jabber even lets you control who has you on theirs. If a challenge/authentication mechanism really is what we have to use to get rid of all spam, we should just let go of email completely and use IM exclusively -- Jabber style, with two-way subscriptions.

Morn · 5 years ago

A M P L I T U D E!

Zhaneel · 5 years ago

@5 There are a lot of security experts who would highly recommend just what you suggested. It does make for more secure e-mail and therefore less likelihood of being spammed/stalked/whatever.

OTOH, it is a pain. Of course, so is getting a phone number from someone new or their address. Real world to virtual world.

Zhaneel

Morn · 5 years ago

Well, a two-way challenge system as employed by 0spam.com and similar services roughly translates to not only getting someone's phone number, but also making him enable his phone for yours before being able to call him.

terpsichoros · 5 years ago

or trading numbers for people with caller-ID

Lupus · 5 years ago

Remember, it costs phone-spam companies nothing except time to use an automated dialer to iterate through all available telephone numbers, in the same way many spam-bots iterate over all possible email addresses on common ISPs. The difference is that time is expensive. If a spam email not only took 20 seconds to deliver, but also locked up the sending mail server for 20 seconds, the spam industry would be crippled. Ho-hum, I'll stop rambling now.