[SpamCop-List] Re: I am getting more messages from this .pk server about listserver messages I can do nothing about.

[Mike Easter]

Geoffrey Hyde wrote:
> "Mike Easter"

>> antispam mungeing of a From doesn't cause you
>> adverse effects.
>
> If I wanted it munged, yes.  But I don't want it munged.  QED.

I'm not trying to /convince/ you to munge your From -- I believe that it
is your 'right' to maintain a good From, and I support the arguments of
those who argue for using a good From instead of mungeing it.  Normally
the reasons for mungeing the From are to counteract the effect of
addresses harvesters which scrape the From addies from the overview.

In this case I suggested or recommended mungeing the From because you
are posting into a system which you and I both know is going onto a
webforum board which /does/ munge your From automatically as an antispam
measure and is also going out a mailing list which is causing you to be
receiving belated bounces addressed to your From.  Which belated bounces
are *not* misdirected in terms of spamcop reportability.

>> You are reporting a server which is doing nothing wrong.  That is
>> *not* a good scenario.  It is arguably bad reporting by spamcop,
>> which /can/ get you in trouble.
>
> IF it is bad SC reporting, as you say, the SC admins will have to
> improve their servers to handle the problems.

There are several SC 'strategies' to prevent problems.  One of the
strategies is to make rules for the reporters.  For example, there are
rules about not reporting mailing list spam, unless you are reporting it
as the mailing list admin.  Another rule used to be to not report
misdirected bounces.  Now, the rules have been changed to allow
reporting of a misdirected bounce which are received as a consequence of
a forged or bogus From.

But this situation we are discussing isn't covered precisely in the
rules as written.

What I'm saying is that your situation is closer to being that of a
problem caused by a mailing list condition, which you are not supposed
to report.

What I'm also saying is that your situation is *not* that of receiving a
misdirected bounce due to a forged or bogus From, because the bounce you
are receiving is not misdirected because it /is/ your From.

> Their SC parser isn't
> built to handle listserver messages at all.

The SC rules are that you aren't supposed to report mailing list spam.

> Not quite, the headers don't properly indicate the From: field and I
> would say there is quite a bit of noncompliant header information in
> there.

There is a big problem for mailservers to handle all of the different
varieties of headers which mailing lists present to them.  I'm going to
give one example further down.

>> The problem is that you are intereacting with a system which is
>> causing that to happen.  Using SpamCop as a bludgeon against the .pk
>> server is not the same thing as using SC for 'normal' misdirected
>> bounces.
>
> I am not the person asking it to send me an email message about a
> failure message triggered by another user.

You are [indirectly] sending to a mailing list.  Receiving unwanted
items as a result of 'misadventures' of mailing list traffic is not
spamcop reportable.

As a personal example:  I belong to a DShield mailing list whose headers
I'll talk about below.  I have received 'out of office' bounces because
of that mailing list.  I do *NOT* report such an outofoffice bounce as
spam to the spamcop system because the bounce is a 'manifestation' of my
mailing list 'condition'.  While it is true that I shouldn't have gotten
the bounce and while it is also true that we have 'discussed' in the
list the potential for outofoffice responders to get themselves spamcop
reported, I didn't find what I received to be an appropriate report.

>  If you cannot see this,
> you cannot see that I see this as spam.

It is /definitely/ not a 'spam' by definition.  It is an unwanted mail.
It is a bounce of your own mail to a mailing list.

>  (Unless you get
> a clue, and start reading things properly.)

We are disagreeing about the interpretation of the reportability.

>> Normally misdirected bounces are bouncing an item to an abused forged
>> From.  In this case the bounces are going to the /real/ From, not a
>> forged one..
>
> Or in this case, a From which has not been properly inserted in the
> headers of the email message, a From which should indicate the lugnet
> server as the origiator of the email, not me.

You are mistaken.  It is 'normal' and acceptable for mailing list items
to maintain the From of the sender.  There are many many different ways
for mailing list headers to contain information.  Perhaps we should
start a subthread and discuss that, but I'm going to show one example
below.

>> I think that lugnet needs to be dealing with this situation.  It is
>> their setup which is causing your news post to go flying around the
>> mail system and causing trouble for mail servers.
>
> Got that right.  But how to convince you that this problem is
> something I can't do anything about, and is therefore spam?  (QED,
> btw.)

It is not spam.  It is a bounce of your contribution to a mailing list.

What we agree on is that it is unwanted and that the bounce should be
going to the lugnet server and not you.

>  I
> did not ask for the lugnet server to set me up as the Failure-notice
> recipient.

There isn't an official 'failure-notice' condition here.

> Therefore, it is causing me to be spammed by the .pk
> mailserver.

Not spammed

> I don't /want/ or /need/ an unmunged From: - why do I want one?

OK.  I won't argue about that with you.

>> I say that if you wish you can leave your addy unmunged for this
>> newsserver, but you can't spamcop report the bounce which isn't
>> misdirected.
>
> I can if I think it is spam.

Not spam.

We are currently discussing if such a report is against the rules
because it pertains to mailing list problems and also that it is not
included in the rules because it is not a misdirected bounce.  It is
definitely not spam.

Now I'm here at the bottom and I'll mention one mailing lists headers.

My gmail address subscribes to the dshield list.  The dshield list goes
to my gmail which is forwarded to my earthlink address.  I'll leave out
the headers that involve the forwarding and truncate the various other
headers here.

From: Subscriber's address
To: "'General DShield Discussion List'"
Sender: list-bounces at lists.dshield.org
Errors-To: list-bounces at lists.dshield.org

If a list someone's outofoffice were misconfigured and my addy were in
the From and I got the outofoffice bounce, I would not report it,
because it is a consequence of my involvement with a mailing list.

There are many other variations of the above headers of mailing list
items.


-- 
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin