Subject: [Tools-discuss] master whitelist for ietf/irtf/etc email lists

From: Aaron Falk <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 11:19:42 -0800

Hi-

I'm frustrated by the list filtering in Mailman.  The  
[email-masked] is often copied in IETF scheduling announcements  
and discussion.  I have that list set to subscribers only since it  
attracts a fair bit of spam otherwise.  Now I need to check moderator  
requests frequently to release messages from wgchairs list members  
who are not rgchairs list members.  At first I thought all I needed  
was a list of wgchairs to whitelist.  But that would need maintenance  
to keep current.   A more useful solution would be a 'master'  
whitelist of all IETF list subscribers that would work for all IETF  
lists.  It would probably need regular tending so that spam senders  
didn't pollute it but tending a single white list seems a reasonable  
effort.  Additionally, individual list owners could maintain local  
blacklists.  I don't know if this is possible or easily done in  
Mailman but it seems like it would be quite handy.

--aaron

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---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 02:13:42 +0100

Aaron,

Here's a secret. There is such a whitelist, which is used to help
with spam filtering for the secretariat ticket system (the
addresses like ietf-action). The problem is, that list is used
in conjunction with TMDA, and we know that quite a few people in
the IETF don't like TMDA (because if you're not whitelisted, you get
a one-time confirmation to process manually). Also, there are
practical issues in mixing TMDA and mailman. Anything that checks
a whitelist with a couple of thousand entries is a performance
challenge, and of course a whitelist doesn't protect you against
forgeries anyway.

    Brian

Aaron Falk wrote:
> Hi-
> 
> I'm frustrated by the list filtering in Mailman.  The  [email-masked] 
> is often copied in IETF scheduling announcements  and discussion.  I 
> have that list set to subscribers only since it  attracts a fair bit of 
> spam otherwise.  Now I need to check moderator  requests frequently to 
> release messages from wgchairs list members  who are not rgchairs list 
> members.  At first I thought all I needed  was a list of wgchairs to 
> whitelist.  But that would need maintenance  to keep current.   A more 
> useful solution would be a 'master'  whitelist of all IETF list 
> subscribers that would work for all IETF  lists.  It would probably need 
> regular tending so that spam senders  didn't pollute it but tending a 
> single white list seems a reasonable  effort.  Additionally, individual 
> list owners could maintain local  blacklists.  I don't know if this is 
> possible or easily done in  Mailman but it seems like it would be quite 
> handy.
> 
> --aaron
>