Chris Townley <news@cct-net.co.uk> wrote:
>
>With nothing appearing in cov yesterday, I logged onto google groups,
>and looked at he previous 8 hours - about a 1000 messages, all of which
>appeared to be spam. So circa 3000 spam per day!

Yes, and it's far worse in comp.protocols.time.ntp. Thank god for
killfiles! Usenet would be unreadable now were it not for them.
As it is, the spammer is really just a mild annoyance as it takes a
few seconds more to run the filters when I enter a new group.

Has anybody actually identified the spammer? I gather he is a man
with a grudge against Usenet users. Likely not too hard to identify
although Google will never do it themselves of course. Assuming it
isn't a Google employee.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article <ujqll4$29qot$2@dont-email.me>,
Chris Townley <news@cct-net.co.uk> wrote:
>On 24/11/2023 16:52, Grant Taylor wrote:
>> On 11/24/23 10:44, Chris Townley wrote:
>>> How can persuade the legitimate giggle users to move to ES for usenet
>>> - perhaps with another free mail address
>>
>> I would naively assume that Gmail users could use their Gmail address in
>> their Usenet client connected to E-S.
>>
>
>It depends on how others setup their spam filters...

Nobody in their right mind would ever set them up based upon the From:
line. It's too easily altered to be in any way useful.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 24/11/2023 18:10, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> In article <ujqll4$29qot$2@dont-email.me>,
> Chris Townley <news@cct-net.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 24/11/2023 16:52, Grant Taylor wrote:
>>> On 11/24/23 10:44, Chris Townley wrote:
>>>> How can persuade the legitimate giggle users to move to ES for usenet
>>>> - perhaps with another free mail address
>>>
>>> I would naively assume that Gmail users could use their Gmail address in
>>> their Usenet client connected to E-S.
>>>
>>
>> It depends on how others setup their spam filters...
>
> Nobody in their right mind would ever set them up based upon the From:
> line. It's too easily altered to be in any way useful.
> --scott

It was suggested earlier.

Best thing might be to get the usenet authorities to remove the Google
group feed. Let them play in their own shit!

--
Chris

In article <ujqpfq$29pb9$2@dont-email.me>,
Chris Townley <news@cct-net.co.uk> wrote:
>On 24/11/2023 18:10, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> In article <ujqll4$29qot$2@dont-email.me>,
>> Chris Townley <news@cct-net.co.uk> wrote:
>>> On 24/11/2023 16:52, Grant Taylor wrote:
>>>> On 11/24/23 10:44, Chris Townley wrote:
>>>>> How can persuade the legitimate giggle users to move to ES for usenet
>>>>> - perhaps with another free mail address
>>>>
>>>> I would naively assume that Gmail users could use their Gmail address in
>>>> their Usenet client connected to E-S.
>>>>
>>>
>>> It depends on how others setup their spam filters...
>>
>> Nobody in their right mind would ever set them up based upon the From:
>> line. It's too easily altered to be in any way useful.
>
>It was suggested earlier.

It's a bad idea. If somebody does that, they deserve what they get.

>Best thing might be to get the usenet authorities to remove the Google
>group feed. Let them play in their own shit!

There are no Usenet authorities, there are only individual server authorities.
Tell the people who run your Usenet server that you want them to drop all
Google traffic. Many sites have been doing it for years.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 11/24/2023 1:19 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
> On 24/11/2023 18:10, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> In article <ujqll4$29qot$2@dont-email.me>,
>> Chris Townley  <news@cct-net.co.uk> wrote:
>>> On 24/11/2023 16:52, Grant Taylor wrote:
>>>> On 11/24/23 10:44, Chris Townley wrote:
>>>>> How can persuade the legitimate giggle users to move to ES for usenet
>>>>> - perhaps with another free mail address
>>>>
>>>> I would naively assume that Gmail users could use their Gmail
>>>> address in
>>>> their Usenet client connected to E-S.
>>>>
>>>
>>> It depends on how others setup their spam filters...
>>
>> Nobody in their right mind would ever set them up based upon the From:
>> line.  It's too easily altered to be in any way useful.
>> --scott
>
> It was suggested earlier.
>
> Best thing might be to get the usenet authorities to remove the Google
> group feed. Let them play in their own shit!
>

There is no USENET "authority". It is up to the sites providing
Google with a connection to take action. Apparently they are too
happy jacking their numbers up for bragging rights to do the right
thing.

bill

bill <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
>There is no USENET "authority". It is up to the sites providing
>Google with a connection to take action. Apparently they are too
>happy jacking their numbers up for bragging rights to do the right
>thing.

The problem is that there is a lot of legitimate traffic from Google and
while some admins are willing to lose that (many have shut off Google postings
years ago) others are not. Admins running larger sites are more likely
not to.

So for the past couple weeks a lot of work on the part of a lot of admins
have gone into cleaning up this spam, most of which is the result of one
single spammer on google. Most sites have pretty effectively cancelled
it, though not all have. Keep standing by.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 11/24/23 12:08, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Has anybody actually identified the spammer?

It seems to be more than one Google / Gmail account to me. As such it's
either one spammer with many Google / Gmail accounts to burn through, or
more likely multiple spammers.

> I gather he is a man with a grudge against Usenet users.

Given the different type of spam, especially different languages, I
strongly suspect it's multiple different spammers.

> Likely not too hard to identify although Google will never do it
> themselves of course.

I suspect it's trivial for teams within Google to take the
posting-account (?) identifier in the headers and correlate to the
actual account(s).

> Assuming it isn't a Google employee.

I doubt it.

--
Grant. . . .

Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>On 11/24/23 12:08, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> Has anybody actually identified the spammer?
>
>It seems to be more than one Google / Gmail account to me. As such it's
>either one spammer with many Google / Gmail accounts to burn through, or
>more likely multiple spammers.

Have you used google? They just keep issuing new accounts. Consequently
he has basically an infinite number of accounts available to him.

>> I gather he is a man with a grudge against Usenet users.
>
>Given the different type of spam, especially different languages, I
>strongly suspect it's multiple different spammers.

There is still the normal google spam level from many smaller spammers, but
the major blast taking place right now appears to be one person and appears
to be some sort of revenge spam.

>> Likely not too hard to identify although Google will never do it
>> themselves of course.
>
>I suspect it's trivial for teams within Google to take the
>posting-account (?) identifier in the headers and correlate to the
>actual account(s).

There are no teams within Google involved. This is much of the problem.
Google Groups operates more or less automatically with very little human
intervention. If Google actually cared, it would be a trivial problem to
fix but nobody in Google management even realizes Usenet exists.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 11/24/2023 7:47 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>
> If Google actually cared, it would be a trivial problem to
> fix but nobody in Google management even realizes Usenet exists.

Which is why I said it is up to the people who provide google with
their newsfeeds to just cut them off.

bill

On 25 Nov 2023 00:47:25 -0000, kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

..If Google actually cared, it would be a trivial problem to
>fix but nobody in Google management even realizes Usenet exists.

That's because Google doesn't have Usenet - they have Google Groups!

--
NNNN

On Friday, November 24, 2023 at 3:36:41 PM UTC+2, Michael S wrote:
> On Friday, November 24, 2023 at 1:57:14 PM UTC+2, Neil Rieck wrote:
> > On Thursday, November 23, 2023 at 5:45:58 PM UTC-5, Michael S wrote:
> > > On Thursday, November 23, 2023 at 2:34:18 PM UTC+2, Neil Rieck wrote:
> > > > On Monday, November 20, 2023 at 8:20:47 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> > > > > On 2023-11-19, Robert A. Brooks <FIRST...@vmssoftware.com> wrote:
> > > > > > On 11/19/2023 6:28 AM, Mark Daniel wrote:
> > > > > >> On 19/11/2023 20:52, Fred. Zwarts wrote:
> > > > > >>> Op 19.nov.2023 om 03:03 schreef Mark Daniel:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >>>> Injection-Info contains: google-groups.googlegroups.com
> > > > > >>> works very well in Thunderbird 115.4.2.
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >> It DOES! 115.4.3 for mine.
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >> Thought I'd previously tried this without success. Go figure.
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >> Much less of a sledgehammer.
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >
> > > > > > As a Thunderbird user with no filters, I've seen no spam posts all week.
> > > > > >
> > > > > According to your headers, you appear to be using Eternal September
> > > > > and they are currently doing the filtering on your behalf.
> > > > >
> > > > > Unfortunately, they sometimes filter genuine posts as well that have
> > > > > wrongly been classified as spam.
> > > > >
> > > > > Simon.
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
> > > > > Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.
> > > > I wonder if there is something wrong with the group settings of cov
> > > > Our group allows anyone to post
> > > > Other groups only allow group members to post (so they need to have a google account, and must first authenticate). Perhaps this is how they control throttling (like posts per minute).
> > > > I have sent a note to google asking how to change these settings
> > > > If the settings cannot be changed, then I wonder if we shouldn't create a new group titled comp.os.openvms
> > > >
> > > > Neil Rieck
> > > > Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
> > > > https://neilrieck.net
> > > comp.os.vms is not a Google group. It is a Usenet group that can be accessed,
> > > apart from other means, via Google's web portal.
> > > Usenet does not have a notion of group membership.
> > Then I wonder who set the privacy settings for comp.os.linux (gets SPAM but is tiny by comparison to comp.os.vms) because clicking "about" on comp..os.linux reveals that anyone posting there must have a google account.
> >
> > On a related note, we could create a new group called comp.os.openvms then set the privacy settings to be more restirctive.
> > Neil Rieck
> > Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
> > https://neilrieck.net
> Test. Posted via Google Groups.

Another test. Posted via Google Groups.

On Fri, 24 Nov 2023 20:23:07 -0500
bill <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/24/2023 7:47 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> >
> > If Google actually cared, it would be a trivial problem to
> > fix but nobody in Google management even realizes Usenet exists.
>
> Which is why I said it is up to the people who provide google with
> their newsfeeds to just cut them off.
>
> bill
>
>

Hi, Cato.

On Fri, 24 Nov 2023 13:13:22 -0000 (UTC), Simon Clubley
<clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:

>On 2023-11-24, Subcommandante XDelta <vlf@star.enet.dec.com> wrote:
>>
>> I wave the white flag, I surrender, this torrential flood of mutating
>> spam is overwhelming, manual adjustments of my ad-hoc kill-filters, in
>> forte agent, on windows, just isn't cutting the mustard any more.
>>
>> What is the best-practice best-practice, in terms of usenet feeds,
>> usenet reader clients, and kill-filters, or bayesian spam filtering,
>> that minimises baby bathwater frienly fire collateral damage, and
>> stays on top of this synamically devolving situation?
>>
>> Has anyone achieved this? - please do report in, thank you.
>
>Yes. Use Eternal September. I lose all the Google Groups postings to
>comp.os.vms, which is unfortunate, but it is a lot better than the
>alternative.
>
>Others here have also reported good things about news.i2pn2.org.
>
>Simon.

Thanks Simon and Andy (Burns), for the reflections.

After some pottering about with Claws Mail for Windows, I decided to
give Mozilla Thunderbird a bash, with the i2pn2 newsfeed and was
pleasantly surprised - SPAM free, although retention of posts at i2pn2
seems to be siz months only.

Given some retro PGP requirements (Enigmail v1.9.9), I am still
running a relatively ancient v55.0 of Thunderbird, but encountered no
problems.

Looking at the filtering modes available, in Thunderbird, in the
spirit of "Semper Kludgeamus", spit, tissue, string, and gaffer tape,
how is this for a way forward until the SPAM flood abates:

1. Everyone agrees when posting a new topic to start the subject line
with a TAG: [tag}, on date DATE.

2. Everyone agrees that if someone posts a new topic without the
agreed TAG, then they do not post any solid technical content to the
topic, only reminders to the original poster, to re-post tout suite,
using the agreed TAG.

3. Anyone who wants a grief free c.o.v. life uses a Usenet text
newsreader application that enables then to specify kill filters to
match both these criteria:

a) The subject line does not include the agreed TAG

b) The post date is after the DATE that the TAG protocol discipline
was implemented.

Such a filter is possible in the cross-platform Mozilla Thunderbird,
at least.

Whomeever is flooding the SPAM, is doing so blindly, and it's
improbable that they'd pick up on the protocol in c.o.v.

Shoot the idea down, gently, and accurately. :-)

Subcommandante XDelta wrote:

> Shoot the idea down, gently, and accurately.

I doubt people would be [aware/willing/remember] to tweak the subject
line like that, what if every group came up with individual rules?

On Sun, 26 Nov 2023 10:08:57 +0000, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>
wrote:

>Subcommandante XDelta wrote:
>
>> Shoot the idea down, gently, and accurately.
>
>I doubt people would be [aware/willing/remember] to tweak the subject
>line like that, what if every group came up with individual rules?

It would be precisely one TAG that prefixes the subject line of all
new topics, such as [cov], or [vms].

Something that no spam post will contain, and a filter that kills all
posts that do not contain the TAG, combined with the second condition
that the post is posted after time DATE, the date the TAG was
implemented, should see all spam sent to Conventry, touch wood.

comp.os.vms is not populated by randoms, rather, usual suspects, so
the discipline could be maintained.

Subcommandante XDelta wrote:

> Andy Burns wrote:
>
>> I doubt people would be [aware/willing/remember] to tweak the subject
>> line like that, what if every group came up with individual rules?
>
> It would be precisely one TAG that prefixes the subject line of all
> new topics, such as [cov], or [vms].

yes, I realise that, but adding a [vms] tag here and a [linux] tag there
and a [win11] tag etc, and then filtering for all those tags, becomes a
ballache

> Something that no spam post will contain

I wouldn't be so sure, Ray has said the spammers are already watching
and learning how to evade his filters.

> should see all spam sent to Conventry, touch wood.

Is that near the Scary Devil Monastery?

> comp.os.vms is not populated by randoms, rather, usual suspects, so
> the discipline could be maintained.

I would hope that anyone who's enough of a greybeard to even know of VMS
realises that it's high time to switch away from Google Groups back to a
proper usenet client and server, with one rule to nuke everything from
Google Groups.

Subcommandante XDelta <vlf@star.enet.dec.com> wrote:
>1. Everyone agrees when posting a new topic to start the subject line
>with a TAG: [tag}, on date DATE.

Most of the postings about vms have the word "vms" in the subject anyway,
so adding it to some that don't should be no problem, to accomodate people
without the ability to filter on regexps.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Sun, 26 Nov 2023 13:29:28 +1100, Subcommandante XDelta
<vlf@star.enet.dec.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 24 Nov 2023 13:13:22 -0000 (UTC), Simon Clubley
><clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>
>>On 2023-11-24, Subcommandante XDelta <vlf@star.enet.dec.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I wave the white flag, I surrender, this torrential flood of mutating
>>> spam is overwhelming, manual adjustments of my ad-hoc kill-filters, in
>>> forte agent, on windows, just isn't cutting the mustard any more.
>>>
>>> What is the best-practice best-practice, in terms of usenet feeds,
>>> usenet reader clients, and kill-filters, or bayesian spam filtering,
>>> that minimises baby bathwater frienly fire collateral damage, and
>>> stays on top of this synamically devolving situation?
>>>
>>> Has anyone achieved this? - please do report in, thank you.
>>
>>Yes. Use Eternal September. I lose all the Google Groups postings to
>>comp.os.vms, which is unfortunate, but it is a lot better than the
>>alternative.
>>
>>Others here have also reported good things about news.i2pn2.org.
>>
>>Simon.
>
>Thanks Simon and Andy (Burns), for the reflections.
>
>After some pottering about with Claws Mail for Windows, I decided to
>give Mozilla Thunderbird a bash, with the i2pn2 newsfeed and was
>pleasantly surprised - SPAM free, although retention of posts at i2pn2
>seems to be siz months only.
>
>Given some retro PGP requirements (Enigmail v1.9.9), I am still
>running a relatively ancient v55.0 of Thunderbird, but encountered no
>problems.
>
>Looking at the filtering modes available, in Thunderbird, in the
>spirit of "Semper Kludgeamus", spit, tissue, string, and gaffer tape,
>how is this for a way forward until the SPAM flood abates:
>
>1. Everyone agrees when posting a new topic to start the subject line
>with a TAG: [tag}, on date DATE.
>
>2. Everyone agrees that if someone posts a new topic without the
>agreed TAG, then they do not post any solid technical content to the
>topic, only reminders to the original poster, to re-post tout suite,
>using the agreed TAG.
>
>3. Anyone who wants a grief free c.o.v. life uses a Usenet text
>newsreader application that enables then to specify kill filters to
>match both these criteria:
>
>a) The subject line does not include the agreed TAG
>
>b) The post date is after the DATE that the TAG protocol discipline
>was implemented.
>
>Such a filter is possible in the cross-platform Mozilla Thunderbird,
>at least.
>
>Whomeever is flooding the SPAM, is doing so blindly, and it's
>improbable that they'd pick up on the protocol in c.o.v.
>
>Shoot the idea down, gently, and accurately. :-)

Sometimes you just have to take your own thought-bubbles, out to the
back paddock, and pop them unceremoniously.

Such rules work for initial posts, but not to replies to such posts,
oh well..

As for experiments, based on given advice:

1. Eternal September:

https://www.eternal-september.org/

Good retention back to 2005-ish, filters most of the SPAM, however,
not perfectly, the SPAM remains an annoyance, but newsgroup life can
limp on.

2. https://www.i2pn2.org/

Poor retention, back about six months, however, it does an excellent
job filtering the SPAM, and only the odd, sparse, one gets through,
comp.os.vms life can carry on, pretty much as normal.

Both work well with the cross-platform Mozilla Thunderbird email
client, and are free to use.

I cannot imagine there is any good reason, for people to keep
participating with the colloquy through google-groups, other than
using it for historical research, given its extensive retention.

I'm keeping an weather eye on the SPAM, in my usual Newsreader Forte
Agent, with a NewsGroupDirect (NGD) feed, circa 35,000 SPAM messages
in the last week! (the NGD admins are certainly not on top of the
situation yet, but they have been formally informed)

Subcommandante XDelta wrote:

> I cannot imagine there is any good reason, for people to keep
> participating with the colloquy through google-groups, other than
> using it for historical research, given its extensive retention.

You shouldn't rely on google to preserve the archive forever (n.b. a few
years ago google users started spamming uk.telecom with credit card
data, in response google removed the group from G2, which made the
archive inaccessible).

Does info-VAX keep an archive of the mailing list traffic?

On 12/3/2023 7:56 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
> Subcommandante XDelta wrote:
>
>> I cannot imagine there is any good reason, for people to keep
>> participating with the colloquy through google-groups, other than
>> using it for historical research, given its extensive retention.
>
> You shouldn't rely on google to preserve the archive forever (n.b. a few
> years ago google users started spamming uk.telecom with credit card
> data, in response google removed the group from G2, which made the
> archive inaccessible).
>
> Does info-VAX keep an archive of the mailing list traffic?

Neither http://rbnsn.com/pipermail/info-vax_rbnsn.com/ nor
https://comp.os.vms.narkive.com/ seems to go back to the
beginning.

There may be more maillist archives.

Arne

On 12/3/23 06:56, Andy Burns wrote:
> You shouldn't rely on google to preserve the archive forever (n.b. a few
> years ago google users started spamming uk.telecom with credit card
> data, in response google removed the group from G2, which made the
> archive inaccessible).

My personal opinion is that Google is going to eventually deprecate the
Google Groups Usenet gateway and any / all history that they had will
disappear. Probably more silently than we would like.

--
Grant. . . .

Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> On 12/3/2023 7:56 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
>> Subcommandante XDelta wrote:
>>
>> Does info-VAX keep an archive of the mailing list traffic?
>
> Neither http://rbnsn.com/pipermail/info-vax_rbnsn.com/ nor
> https://comp.os.vms.narkive.com/ seems to go back to the
> beginning.
>

I took over the Info-VAX mailing in 2008 and, unfortunately,
didn't copy the archives from theprevious owner of the list.

Ken

On 12/3/2023 12:11 PM, Ken Robinson wrote:
> Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 12/3/2023 7:56 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
>>> Subcommandante XDelta wrote:
>>>
>>> Does info-VAX keep an archive of the mailing list traffic?
>>
>> Neither http://rbnsn.com/pipermail/info-vax_rbnsn.com/ nor
>> https://comp.os.vms.narkive.com/ seems to go back to the
>> beginning.
>>
>
> I took over the Info-VAX mailing in 2008 and, unfortunately,
> didn't copy the archives from theprevious owner of the list.

And both:
ftp://crvax.sri.com/info-vax/
ftp://mvb.saic.com/info-vax/
seems to be gone.

I wonder if anyone still has a copy of those.

Arne

On Sun, 3 Dec 2023 17:11:13 -0000 (UTC), Ken Robinson
<kenrbnsn@my-test-bed.com> wrote:

>Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 12/3/2023 7:56 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
>>> Subcommandante XDelta wrote:
>>>
>>> Does info-VAX keep an archive of the mailing list traffic?
>>
>> Neither http://rbnsn.com/pipermail/info-vax_rbnsn.com/ nor
>> https://comp.os.vms.narkive.com/ seems to go back to the
>> beginning.
>>
>
>I took over the Info-VAX mailing in 2008 and, unfortunately,
>didn't copy the archives from theprevious owner of the list.
>
>Ken

Hello Ken,

How does one currrently subscribe to Info-VAX? - Thank you.

At 04:52 PM 12/3/2023, Subcommandante XDelta via Info-vax wrote:

>Hello Ken,
>
>How does one currrently subscribe to Info-VAX? - Thank you.

Send an email to info-vax-request@rbnsn.com
with a subject of "subscribe" (no quotes)

Ken