[DeTomaso] Email Forum Opportunity
msm at portata.com
msm at portata.com
Wed Apr 20 02:04:47 EDT 2016
Michael is not speaking from a point of knowledge, so let me help shine
some light on the dark...
All web sites are under constant attack from domestic and international
sources (China, Russia, the various -stans, etc.) These are mostly
"script kiddies" who are using computers to probe the various access
points and trying to guess passwords. That's just life in the modern
world.
You can see attacks in real-time here: http://map.norsecorp.com/#/ This
is only a fraction of them.
I get about 30 to 40 notifications of hack attempts per day on the POCA
site. That's pretty typical. I block out the more egregious sources.
For the techies: I blacklist the IP if in US/Europe or the /16 if from a
country without POCA members.
Asa Jay set up a very good system for blocking the hackers and for
scanning files for viruses. It is very effective. I do this for a
living, so I know about such things. There have been no break ins or
viruses since he set that you a few years ago.
The big problem that any club has with web sites or
newsletters/magazines is getting people to write and contribute
material. The work on the site itself or the layout of the monthly
newsletter is relatively small. Changing web site technology or service
providers does not address the root cause of problems.
Some technical background on the email bounces and the account
shutdowns...
When you send an email from your PC, the email does not go directly to
your recipient's PC. It goes to a server near you and then is handed
off to another server and to another as it winds its way to the
recipient much like the mail in the pony express. Your email may go
through 20 or 30 servers as it crosses the county. These servers are
owned and operated by various communications companies such as Verizon,
Sprint, AT&T, and AOL. Even if you are a AT&T subscriber at home, your
email may travel across servers owned by Verizon, AOL, etc.
Each server along the way examines the mail and makes a guess as to
whether is it spam or not. If the mail has a lot of recipients or
attachments or if it has trigger words like Viagra, it is more likely to
be tagged as spam. If you send a large number of emails every day, you
may be tagged as a known spammer. If an email is tagged as spam, it may
be bounced back to the sender as undeliverable.
Each communication company has its own method for guessing as to whether
email is spam or not. AOL servers tend to be more sensitive than
others. To further complicate things, the sensitivity of the servers
varies from day to day. Some days, they tend to reject more emails than
usual.
When you send an email to the POCA email forum (this one), your message
travels through a few servers on its way to the POCA server in Arizona.
The POCA server then sends a copy of your email to a few hundred people
around the US and overseas. Each of those copies travels through
various servers on the way to the recipients. This is where the trouble
starts. As the POCA server sends out a large number of emails, it is
more likely to be tagged as a spammer and have some emails bounced back.
What has been happening lately is that certain servers (mostly AOL, I
think) have been rejecting emails. The POCA server gets responses back
that they email is undeliverable. After a number of failed attempts to
reach a particular person, it automatically unsubscribes them.
There is not much we can do about that as we cannot control those
servers. We help a bit by rejecting incoming messages with too many
recipients or large attachments which reduces the likelihood that the
outbound messages will be bounced back and people unsubscribed.
A better way of handling this is to use a web-based forum instead of an
email-based forum, however various attempts with web forums on the POCA
site and on Yahoo have proven less popular and have died out. People
love their email.
------ Original Message ------
From: "Asa Jay Laughton" <asajay at asajay.com>
To: "Michael Shortt" <michaelsavga at gmail.com>
Cc: "detomaso at poca.com" <detomaso at poca.com>
Sent: 4/19/2016 7:42:34 PM
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Email Forum Opportunity
>WTF are you talking about Michael? I don't think you have a deep
>understanding of the server or it's security.
>
>The forum is constantly failing and kicking people off? List members
>Infecting the server weekly? WTF are you talking about? The last time
>that I recall the server got hacked was over three years ago. Are
>attempts made? Oh you betcha, but so are attempts made to just about
>-any- server on the internet but they don't come through the list.
>
>If a member -is- causing a problem, it needs to be figured out. But
>I'll tell you right now the POCA server is NOT the server bouncing
>emails causing mass unsubscribes. It's a server down the line at
>GoDaddy rejecting the outgoing traffic for EITHER "spam" or "virus"
>attachments. Unfortunately they don't tell us which one, so we assume
>a bad attachment since the "let-through" has been pretty flawless for
>years. Someone should troubleshoot that.
>
>Magnet for spam and robots? Yes, any website out there, especially
>ones hosting forums are targets. The new POCA forum will be a target
>too. But let me ask you, when was the last time this email list sent
>you spam? When?
>We turned ON attachments a while ago to help share more stuff. Prior
>to turning ON attachments, the forum never, ever, had a problem and it
>is the primary reason Mailman encourages -not- to turn on attachments.
>
>Now with that said, parsing all incoming mail through something like a
>Barracuda spam and virus firewall server would probably catch those
>virus attachments -before- they got to the POCA server.
>
>And the search engine bots are crawling it all the time looking for
>updates so they can return meaningful results when searched.
>
>It keeps three people busy every day? Really? The busiest I get is
>going to read the emails. I've not done any serious troubleshooting on
>the server for months. I could probably figure out what's causing the
>problem but thought it would be a good challenge for someone else to
>troubleshoot in order to help them learn. But that point is moot since
>you'll be standing up a new forum anyway. NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT
>I'VE BEEN LOCKED OUT OF THE SERVER FOR WHO KNOWS HOW LONG AND ALL
>ACCESS PASSWORDS HAVE BEEN CHANGED. I couldn't be helping POCA even if
>I was asked to. Working on it daily? Hardly.
>
>And finally, you're making the new service sound like Fort Knox. I
>seriously doubt that; I've seen that story before. Better security
>than now? Most likely and I'm sure it's something to look forward to,
>but you're trying to make if sound nuclear-proof.
>
>I've become sick of your grandiose posturing making it sound like the
>present web site is constantly being hacked and providing nothing but a
>security problem to the members and that it's taking constant work to
>keep it from causing harm, or that this email forum is antiquated and a
>dying dinosaur. It must be, otherwise why would there still be
>thousands of Mailman email lists still out there and the software still
>updated?
>
>...or that the only way to get new members is to restrict most content
>to locked away member only access areas. Good luck with that but I
>guess it's the new paradigm.
>
>Oh, and Corey was banned from the PI forum (did you miss that part),
>not this one. Because the PI forum is moderated and sometimes the
>forum moderator manages to get pissed off at subscribers.
>
>I was on-board with the move to a new web site and even on board to
>POCA paying a reasonable amount to have it managed. But now your
>verbal posturing is just pissing me off.
>
>For those interested, I could probably stand up a replacement site with
>Mailman (brand new) in less than 24 hours.
>
>Asa Jay
>
>Sent using Jedi Mind Tricks
>
>Michael Shortt <michaelsavga at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Nobody has been banned from the forum.
>>
>>The forum is constantly failing and kicking people out, it is a magnet
>>for
>>spam and robots.
>>It also spreads viruses faster than $10 hooker, because there are
>>several
>>of you that use it that do not have proper software and you guys
>>infect the
>>server and everybody else weekly.
>>
>>It literally keeps three people (Gerry Womack, Asa Jay and Ed Mendez)
>>busy
>>every day to keep it operational, we all owe them a huge debt for
>>their
>>service.
>>
>>The new website is pretty hack proof, has awesome security and best of
>>all,
>>a 24 hour tech support line.
>>
>>It will be a problem for somebody else now.
>>
>>We hope you visit the new forum.
>>
>>Michael
>> On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 6:23 PM, Corey Price
>><[1]coreyjprice at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Since I hadA my membership privileges removed from the PI forum
>>
>> ???
>> Jeff
>>
>>References
>>
>> 1. mailto:coreyjprice at gmail.com
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>
>>Detomaso Forum Managed by POCA
>>Posted emails must not exceed 1.5 Megabytes
>>DeTomaso mailing list
>>DeTomaso at poca.com
>>http://poca.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso_poca.com
>>
>>To manage your subscription (change email address, unsubscribe, etc.)
>>use
>>the links above.
>>
>> Nobody has been banned from the forum.
>>
>> The forum is constantly failing and kicking people out, it is a
>>magnet
>> for spam and robots.
>> It also spreads viruses faster than $10 hooker, because there are
>> several of you that use it that do not have proper software and you
>> guys infect the server and everybody else weekly.
>>
>> It literally keeps three people (Gerry Womack, Asa Jay and Ed
>>Mendez)
>> busy every day to keep it operational, we all owe them a huge debt
>>for
>> their service.
>>
>> The new website is pretty hack proof, has awesome security and best
>>of
>> all, a 24 hour tech support line.
>>
>> It will be a problem for somebody else now.
>>
>> We hope you visit the new forum.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> A A On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 6:23 PM, Corey Price
>> <[1][1]coreyjprice at gmail.com>
>> A A wrote:
>> A A Since I hadA my membership privileges removed from the PI
>>forum
>> A A ???
>> A A Jeff
>> References
>> A A 1. mailto:[2]coreyjprice at gmail.com
>> _______________________________________________
>> Detomaso Forum Managed by POCA
>> Posted emails must not exceed 1.5 Megabytes
>> DeTomaso mailing list
>> [3]DeTomaso at poca.com
>> [4]http://poca.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso_poca.com
>> To manage your subscription (change email address, unsubscribe,
>>etc.)
>> use the links above.
>>
>>References
>>
>> 1. mailto:coreyjprice at gmail.com
>> 2. mailto:coreyjprice at gmail.com
>> 3. mailto:DeTomaso at poca.com
>> 4. http://poca.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso_poca.com
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>
>>Detomaso Forum Managed by POCA
>>Posted emails must not exceed 1.5 Megabytes
>>DeTomaso mailing list
>>DeTomaso at poca.com
>>http://poca.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso_poca.com
>>
>>To manage your subscription (change email address, unsubscribe, etc.)
>>use the links above.
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