[Mailman-Developers] before next release: disable backscatterin default installation

[Julian Mehnle]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Julian Mehnle writes:
>  > There is no such document.
>
> Jo Rhett keeps talking about "technical problems".  Well, conformance
> to a published standard is a technical problem.  Deciding what to do
> in the absence of such a standard is not, and you tell us there isn't
> one.
>
> But I can tell you this for sure: Ian Eiloart demonstrated a lot of
> goodwill toward Mailman when he provided about a half-dozen URLs.  Can
> you justify (to yourself!) doing less?

You expect me to provide URLs showing what?  That there is no standards 
document saying that backscatter is a mortal sin, in metaphoric sense or 
not?  You must be kidding.

> > However you know that it's a mortal sin when you end up on several
> > blacklists (and rightly so!) for having sent backscatter to
> > innocent bystanders.
>
> Oh, brother!  Look up "vigilante", and meditate on the definition
> until you realize that those are the words of a vigilante.
>
> The point is that there's a big difference between blacklisting
> somebody like me, who has participated in this thread and followed
> past discussions of backscatter, and blacklisting some poor Ubuntu
> user, who just installs Mailman and creates a few lists because it
> says on the homepage that it tries to conform to the RFCs on mailing
> lists and provides some antispam features, and expects that it will
> therefore DTRT.
>
> The first is both necessary (hypothetically) and right (if necessary),
> but while the second may be necessary, there's no way it's right.

You seem to be missing that the e-mail system is essentially an anarchy.  
If there were authorities that could be trusted to maintain order, there 
might not be any need for blacklists.  As things are, however, it seems 
perfectly legitimate to reject mail from sources that are exhibiting 
antisocial behavior such as hitting unrelated people with backscatter.

Of course we all don't want Mailman installations to systematically end up 
on blacklists for sending backscatter.  That's why I suggested the use of 
SPF as a method to determine when bounces can be sent safely and when 
not.
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