[Mailman-Developers] Yet another weird-a$$ potential attack problem...

Barry A. Warsaw barry@zope.com
Fri, 5 Apr 2002 01:01:44 -0500


>>>>> "DN" == Dale Newfield <Dale@Newfield.org> writes:

    DN> On Fri, 5 Apr 2002, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
    >> We can protect dumb replybots by making it less convenient for
    >> our users, essentially by forcing them to perform an action
    >> that is unlikely (though not impossible, Mr. Turing), to be
    >> doable by anything other than a human.

    DN> What if we make the required response not responding to the
    DN> message, but rather following either an http link to a webpage
    DN> with a "Yes" button, or following a mailto link that specifies
    DN> the special reply token in the thus composed email message?

The former is already implemented in MM2.1; it's just optional not
mandatory.  The latter is an interesting idea, but I don't how
burdensome that would be on people with today's MUA's (XEmacs/VM
handles it, and is that really the only one that matters :).

I'd be interested in other people's thoughts.

-Barry