[Mailman-Developers] Interesting study -- spam onpostedaddresses...

[Chuq Von Rospach]

On 2/20/02 8:23 PM, "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:

> Nor do the spammers need to deobfuscate all the obfuscations.  They
> only need enough that they're getting a reasonable harvest rate.

A very good point. We want to make it tough on spambots, but adding
complexity to the system is useful only if it actually makes it tough on the
spambots. If, instead, it merely ends up adding complexity, we might as well
not do it.

If the real answer is "well, it means they have to harvest our site five
times to ge the address instead of once", we shouldn't bother. Does anyone
know if the /. System actually accomplishes anything? Or have the spambots
adapted already? 

We can't do nothing until we get a 100% solution -- those don't exist. But
we also shouldn't do things just to be seen as doing things, if those things
we do don't really help or are merely minor inconveniences for the spam
harvesters that are easily worked around.

Ah, the joys of design and architecture. Of course, if it was easy, it'd be
written by now.



-- 
Chuq Von Rospach, Architech
chuqui@plaidworks.com -- http://www.chuqui.com/

Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties
are largely ceremonial.