Whitelist/verification spam filters

[Gerhard Häring]

Paul Rubin wrote in comp.lang.python:
> I went from a naked to a mangled email address in my usenet headers
> which has really helped me cut back on spam.

Bad idea.

http://www.redballoon.net/~snorwood/antispam.html

"""
Address munging

Bad idea! Some people like to post to Usenet with forged From:
headers, like <no at spam.com> and other such nonsense. This is bad for
several reasons: first, it violates the standard for conduct on
Usenet, RFC1036. Second, it is considered antisocial behavior, as it
makes it very difficult or impossible for legitimate users to get in
touch with the poster via private email. Third, not posting with one's
legitimate email address and full name tends to reduce the credibility
of one's posts. Finally, if not done properly, this sort of activity
will cause excessive use and abuse of someone else's resources.
"""

There are better ways to reduce spam.

- Want no private replies /at all/? Use an .invalid TLD, like
  no at replies.invalid. This will bounce immediately _and_ some good
  MUAs will warn you before sending that the address is in fact
  invalid.

- Want to read replies? On usenet, use a valid email in From, that you
  even won't ever need to read. Use a valid email that you will read
  in the Reply-To header. Reason: Spammers collect addresses by
  sending XOVER requests to newsservers. Reply-To is not among the
  headers sent by the XOVER command. To get at the Reply-To header is
  thus more costly and (almost) nobody does so.

Gerhard
-- 
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reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')))