spam percentage
in [Fortran]
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From: feenberg on 13 Apr 2010 07:55 On Apr 12, 4:23 pm, hel...(a)astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig--- undress to reply) wrote: > In article > <8628221c-4f10-4829-b389-a5fe8cef4...(a)j21g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>, > > Terence <tbwri...(a)cantv.net> writes: > > I see, by count, that there are now 1 genuine forran postings per 3 > > pages of titles. At 30 odd titles per page, that makes it close to a > > 99% spam proportion.Anybody know how something can be done? > > Or where to report in Google? > > Are the spam messages (which seem to be only in c.l.f of the groups I > follow) posted THROUGH the Google Groups interface? You can see for any message from where it was posted with the "more options" and "See Original". It will be the top line, and yes, the spam is mostly local to Google Groups. Because it is so obviously spam, I doubt it spreads to other Usenet servers very much. Daniel Feenberg
From: Robert Miles on 13 Apr 2010 10:45 "Terence" <tbwright(a)cantv.net> wrote in message news:8628221c-4f10-4829-b389-a5fe8cef4019(a)j21g2000yqh.googlegroups.com... >I see, by count, that there are now 1 genuine forran postings per 3 > pages of titles. At 30 odd titles per page, that makes it close to a > 99% spam proportion.Anybody know how something can be done? > Or where to report in Google? Where I've never ever seen a reply in > the Help Forum? > Repeat: some readers cannot have a censored effective "newsreader" > solution. I've been dealing with similar problems for months before I found this newsgroup. A summary of what I've found: 1. Google Groups appears to be doing something about spam problems, just far too slowly. 4 to 6 weeks delay if you report a specific piece of spam, more like 13 months if you report a spammer but not all the specific messages from that spammer. As a result, at least 95% of the spam I see is posted through Google Groups. 2. One rather drastic solution I've seen recommended, if your newsreader permits, is to discard everything posted through Google Groups. Probably too drastic for many of you, though, even if you find a way to do it. 3. The email/newsreader programs from Microsoft, such as Outlook Express and Windows Mail, have some filtering capability, just not enough. 4. A program call Hamster is reported to be able to add filtering capability under many versions of Windows, including Vista. I haven't tried it yet. See the hamster.en.* newsgroups for more details. It does not replace the newsreader; it just adds filtering to the steam of messages reaching it. 5. Around a dozen companies are using a new method of posting through Google Groups that blocks some of the normal methods of reporting spam received through a newsreader by doing SOMETHING to the Subject: header line. I haven't determined just what yet, but it tends to make email program stop adding end-of-line characters for the rest of any spam report you include that Subject: line in. Many of these spammers are among those currently sending the most spam, especially to high-volume newsgroups they can reach through Google Groups. I've thought of more to do than I have time to try, so it may be a good idea to divide up these ideas among regulars of the newsgroup. 1. If you use a Google Groups account, make an extra effort to report all the spam that uses graphics characters in the Subject: line, using any method Google Groups provides. This MAY get faster action than reports from elsewhere on Usenet. Also record features of the spam messages you would like to filter on, such as particular web sites they mention; I've saved links to some software that can do some such filtering, but can't find them quickly. 2. If you use a newsreader, use the standard methods of reporting spam, which is usually emailing just the header of the spam messages to the abuse address of the newsgroups provider where it was posted. For Google Groups, this address (with a few spaces added) is groups-abuse @ google.com; so delete the spaces and then send your spam report there. The method of displaying the whole header varies from newsreader to newsreader; for mine, it involves displaying the spam message, then pressing the Ctrl key and the F3 key at the same time. However, observe the source code of the Subject: line first. If it starts with "Subject: =?", then save a copy of the spam message, and send an extra copy of the spam report to yourself, so you can make more tries if needed. Avoid placing the header of any message with any other type of Subject: line after any that start with "Subject: =?", if you place multiple headers in any one spam report. Also, avoid placing any header with the "Subject: =?" type of header line after any other such header than does not mention the same web site. Expect most of the spam messages with a "Subject: =?" line to include graphics symbols in the Subject: line, but not all of them. Many of the non-spam messages use such headers to put the Subject: line in other languages, though. 3. I use the Windows Mail email/newsreader program; could some of you try reporting a few spam messages with graphics characters in the subject line to get more of an idea of what other newsreader/email program combinations are affected by the problem with shutting down the end-of-line characters? 4. If any of you know enough about alternate character sets the spammers are using in the Subject: line, could you check for errors in how the source code for the Subject: line was built? Robert Miles a retired electronic engineer with a few years of Fortran experience
From: carolus on 13 Apr 2010 13:13 On 4/12/2010 11:42 AM, Craig Powers wrote: > carolus wrote: >> On 4/11/2010 10:11 AM, A Watcher wrote: >>> >>> I use filters with my newsreader so I don't see most of the spam. >> >> What newsreader do you use? Thunderbird has pretty good filtering >> capability for email, but I can't get it to work with newsgroups. > > What problems are you having? There are two useful things that can be > done; message filters will mark stuff as read, and "ignore thread" will > knock an entire thread out of the listing entirely. Are you having > problems with one or the other of those features? > > (I use the former for my regular poster killfile and the latter for > hiding one-off spam messages that make it through onto Eternal September.) If I could use the Thunderbird Bayesian filter to eliminate unwanted content, or the explicit filter rules to eliminate messages with "buy" or "cheap" in the subject line, it would help. In Thunderbird these tools seem to work only on e-mail, not on newsgroups. Perhaps some other newsreader has more capability, or perhaps I am misusing Thunderbird.
From: A Watcher on 13 Apr 2010 12:36 carolus wrote: > On 4/12/2010 11:42 AM, Craig Powers wrote: >> carolus wrote: >>> On 4/11/2010 10:11 AM, A Watcher wrote: >>>> >>>> I use filters with my newsreader so I don't see most of the spam. >>> >>> What newsreader do you use? Thunderbird has pretty good filtering >>> capability for email, but I can't get it to work with newsgroups. >> >> What problems are you having? There are two useful things that can be >> done; message filters will mark stuff as read, and "ignore thread" will >> knock an entire thread out of the listing entirely. Are you having >> problems with one or the other of those features? >> >> (I use the former for my regular poster killfile and the latter for >> hiding one-off spam messages that make it through onto Eternal >> September.) > > If I could use the Thunderbird Bayesian filter to eliminate unwanted > content, or the explicit filter rules to eliminate messages with "buy" > or "cheap" in the subject line, it would help. In Thunderbird these > tools seem to work only on e-mail, not on newsgroups. Perhaps some > other newsreader has more capability, or perhaps I am misusing Thunderbird. I use Thunderbird and am able to set up simple filters that are effective. I set the "Perform these actions" to "Delete Message" and "Mark As Read". I use either the "From is" or "Subject contains" for the rule. The spammers keep coming up with new wrinkles, but this catches most of them. It is also a good way to filter out trolls.
From: Craig Powers on 13 Apr 2010 17:46
carolus wrote: > On 4/12/2010 11:42 AM, Craig Powers wrote: >> carolus wrote: >>> On 4/11/2010 10:11 AM, A Watcher wrote: >>>> >>>> I use filters with my newsreader so I don't see most of the spam. >>> >>> What newsreader do you use? Thunderbird has pretty good filtering >>> capability for email, but I can't get it to work with newsgroups. >> >> What problems are you having? There are two useful things that can be >> done; message filters will mark stuff as read, and "ignore thread" will >> knock an entire thread out of the listing entirely. Are you having >> problems with one or the other of those features? >> >> (I use the former for my regular poster killfile and the latter for >> hiding one-off spam messages that make it through onto Eternal >> September.) > > If I could use the Thunderbird Bayesian filter to eliminate unwanted > content, or the explicit filter rules to eliminate messages with "buy" > or "cheap" in the subject line, it would help. You ought to be able to do the latter right now. I believe that's part of the basic message filtering functionality, which applies to newsgroup messages. I've never really been concerned with the former; at least in clf, when spam makes it through on Eternal September, it's in a consecutive block of posts, which is trivial to highlight and press 'k' to ignore the threads. In Thunderbird these > tools seem to work only on e-mail, not on newsgroups. Perhaps some > other newsreader has more capability, or perhaps I am misusing Thunderbird. Tools - Message Filters will pull up the dialog. It should then say, "Filters for: " with comp.lang.fortran in a dropdown. You can filter by from, to, and subject. |