Spammed from languages@cantr.net after joining mailing list

[berserk9779]

I have received some 200 mails like the following, since I joined the languages mailing list

languages@cantr.net


show details Jul 17 (2 days ago)

VIAGRA ® Official Site -80%

Click here.

Dear languages@cantr.net

_______________________________________________
Languages mailing list
Languages@cantr.net
http://www.cantr.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/languages

I have lost completely visibility on the mailing list. It all goes down as spam

[EchoMan]

Can you switch to a gmail account? They are pretty good at removing spam mails.

Our mailing lists are subject to immense amounts of spam, unfortunately.

[Arenti]

I don't have that problem at all. Though more lately but not much.

[EchoMan]

What Cantr mailing lists are you on then?

[Chris]

Can't the mailing list subscription process be changed so that people sign up when they are logged in to their Cantr accounts?

[EchoMan]

I don't understand what you mean, or how that would help with spam? These are mostly open lists.

[Chris]

I don't understand what you mean, or how that would help with spam? These are mostly open lists.

The languages list is closed.

When I log into my Cantr account, there are a few things I can do other than play the game. For example, I can send a message to a staff department. Why not have the mailing list signup process there too? I assume that spambots don't have Cantr accounts because of the approval process. Why not take advantage of it?

[EchoMan]

The spammers are not members of the list. Subscription to the list is closed, but apparently not posting to it.

[Chris]

The spammers are not members of the list. Subscription to the list is closed, but apparently not posting to it.

Heh, no wonder. Sounds like the foot-powered Flintstone car. Time to upgrade.

[EchoMan]

I'm thinking you're not getting the picture. We want people to be able to contact the departments via email.

[Chris]

I don't know how your software works. With Yahoo!Groups, for example, members can have a "no email, web only" preference. Make all Cantr members part of the list, with no-email as a default. Then the people who want to receive email could change their preferences to receive email from the list.

Allowing anyone to post is just bad.

[EchoMan]

You are still not getting the picture. The list recipients are staff, not every player of Cantr. A mail to language@cantr.org goes to all members of the Language Department, not to the players of Cantr. There is NO way for players to subscribe to Cantr mailing lists.

[notsure]

Berserk, if you are reading this, one of those emails was mine. I'm trying to reach you about Italian Cantr. Please pm.

notsure

[Doug R.]

The spammers are not members of the list. Subscription to the list is closed, but apparently not posting to it.

This is not the case. Only subscribers, system emails, or the list itself can post to mailing lists (support being the only exception). What happens is that the spammers mask the spam under the Cantr domain, so the list accepts them. Gmail removes 99.99% of the spam.

As the new pr list shows, if we set up new lists, we'll remove all the spam. languages -> LD, etc. The trick would be making sure it was updated everywhere in the system where it needs to be. If people refrain from making the new addresses public (i.e. restricted to the web forms only), they'll keep hidden from spam for quite a while.