Re: IRC problem: notabug bringing in spam

On Sat, 1 Feb 2003, Aaron Swartz wrote:

> 
> Nick Kew wrote:
> > Can I put in a plea for the administrators of notabug NOT to publish
> > email addresses featured in IRC, as these may be (as in my case)
> > a great deal more private and vulnerable than our "public" address.
> 
> In a quick search of the logs I couldn't find your email address. I'm 

That's probably because you grepped for my _public_ address.
nick@webthing.com is very public, and heavily spam-filtered.
The address I'm bothered about is known only to a few individuals,
and - I've just found out - appears in your logs every day:-(

> happy to remove things from the logs if you can give me the date and 
> time so I can find them. If you don't want things to be in the logs, 
> start your line with [off].

Totally irrelevant.  The address appearing has nothing to do
with anything I type.  But you're logging my "local" address
every time I join #er.


> But if you're worried about spam, I suggest you get a real solution, 
> like a Bayesian filter. Playing these silly email-address-hiding games 
> don't solve much, in my experience.

I know that very well.

But I have to have an ISP so that I can connect to the net.
That's an old-fashioned modem, which is the only kind of
connection available here.  And with that comes an email address
which I can't filter before the spam travels down my modem link.
And I don't want to block it completely, because a very few people
have it and use it legitimately, and because webthing.com
forwards my legitimate mail to it for when I dialup.

I'm not blaming you: none of us realised until now what was
happening.  But if you could add a regexp to strip email
addresses when people join #er, you will cease to be a
spam-magnet.

-- 
Nick Kew

Received on Saturday, 1 February 2003 22:21:48 UTC