Why would anyone slam this newsgroup so hard with spam?

On 10/21/2023 4:02 PM, Popping Mad wrote:
> Why would anyone slam this newsgroup so hard with spam?
>

Message-ID: <11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555n@googlegroups.com>

So you would craft a filter:

Message-ID Contains googlegroups.com
Delete

Yes, that will cut off a couple legit posts. But the
current NoCeM filter is also cutting off a couple legit posters.
Which kind of damage would you like ?

Paul

In article <uh23iq$s4n9$1@paganini.bofh.team>,
Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>On 10/21/2023 4:02 PM, Popping Mad wrote:
>> Why would anyone slam this newsgroup so hard with spam?
>>
>
>Message-ID: <11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555n@googlegroups.com>
>
>So you would craft a filter:
>
> Message-ID Contains googlegroups.com
> Delete

The problem with a suggestion like this is that it is entirely dependent on
one's individual choice of newsreader. Yes, I get that the above is
"pseudo-code" - something for each user to implement in their own
newsreader - but that's going to be beyond the capabilities of the type of
user who needs the help the most.

Conclusion: This problem really needs to be fixed at the server/admin
level, not at the retail user level. Whoever runs the big servers,
needs to just cut off anything coming from Google.

--
"It does a lot of things half well and it's just a garbage heap of ideas that are
mutually exclusive."

- Ken Thompson, on C++ -

On 10/22/2023 1:16 AM, Kenny McCormack wrote:
> In article <uh23iq$s4n9$1@paganini.bofh.team>,
> Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>> On 10/21/2023 4:02 PM, Popping Mad wrote:
>>> Why would anyone slam this newsgroup so hard with spam?
>>>
>>
>> Message-ID: <11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555n@googlegroups.com>
>>
>> So you would craft a filter:
>>
>> Message-ID Contains googlegroups.com
>> Delete
>
> The problem with a suggestion like this is that it is entirely dependent on
> one's individual choice of newsreader. Yes, I get that the above is
> "pseudo-code" - something for each user to implement in their own
> newsreader - but that's going to be beyond the capabilities of the type of
> user who needs the help the most.
>
> Conclusion: This problem really needs to be fixed at the server/admin
> level, not at the retail user level. Whoever runs the big servers,
> needs to just cut off anything coming from Google.

Not according to administrators.

Their bottom line is, for every-day cruft problems, the
admin does not run around with a dust pan and broom, cleaning up.
Admins only get involved for major problems (that flood a year ago,
which required each admin to fight a little battle with the perp
-- two servers ruined, and a third admin quits).

This means, if you come to USENET looking for a free meal,
you should come armed with a newsreader with a filter.

And since this is a programming group, you could get
the source, and "hard-code" a filter into it :-)

Relf, for example, wrote his own newsreader. Next to no one
got a copy of it.

I know there are people who revel in using the newsreader they
were using when Elvis was skinny, but if it doesn't thread and
it doesn't have basic filtering, you would not be very happy with
modern USENET. My advice would be to search for something better.

"Never take a knife to a gunfight" Pick the right tool for the job.

A UDP is never going to fly, so you can forget that idea. Not gonna happen.
It's filters, or bust. In the past, when UDPs were discussed, it was
going nowhere. There's no reason for this situation to be any different.

For some of the admins, their problem with even thinking about server
side filters, was it was unscalable and it chowed down on CPU cycles
and "made the server slow". You look at how Mixmin behaves some time,
to see what a slow server feels like. USENET is an interactive service,
so you need response times consistent with that. A $60 a month server,
can only be pushed so far.

Paul

On 2023-10-22, Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
> Whoever runs the big servers,
> needs to just cut off anything coming from Google.

So, like, bye bye Tom Russ, Mark Tarver, Malcolm McLean, Ben Hoyt ...

--
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal
Mastodon: @Kazinator@mstdn.ca
NOTE: If you use Google Groups, I don't see you, unless you're whitelisted.

Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> writes:

> On 2023-10-22, Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
>> Whoever runs the big servers,
>> needs to just cut off anything coming from Google.
>
> So, like, bye bye Tom Russ, Mark Tarver, Malcolm McLean, Ben Hoyt ...

Maybe you assume they aren't able to find a different Usenet provider?
Maybe you assume they aren't able to find a different newsreader?
Maybe we just should give them a nudge and some help?
Maybe we should turn that into a "movement"?

This won't be fast.

* Step 0

Find enough participants discussing this idea in a group that fits better
than this one.

* Step 1

Define a date to start mass ignoring/blocking googlegroups and a
signature that explains what is coming. Maybe even multiple signatures.
They should explain that googlegroups users will see a massive drop in
being read soon and how to find an other news provider. Googlegroups
users should get some grace time before this happens.

Deadline 20240101?

Additionally instructions for many newsreaders how to block googlegroups
should be collected in a central place and mentioned in some of these
signatures.

* Step 2

If this gains enough traction, some providers may dare to start thinking
about giving googlegroups the Usenet Death Penalty and then individual
filtering/blocking can be dropped again on the users' side.

* Conclusion

Will this help against spam forever? Yes and no. Usenet spam is older
than Google. That part of the problem will persist, but the new spam
tsunamis are caused by GG not caring at all. This part can be cut off.
Spammers may find other providers and some of those may be as inactive
as googlegroups. Then rinse and repeat. Another provider to cut off!

* Related

See ...

| Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
| Subject: Re: OT: Google sanctioned with UDP
| Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2023 11:22:48 +1100
| Message-ID: <uh1q0o$21s1a$1@dont-email.me>

.... mentioning a provider already UDPing googlegroups. Maybe the term
UDP is a bit overstretched if only one provider is acting this way, but
it is a start.

--
|rom The Future. +++ Breaking News From The Future. +++ Breaking News F|
| The USoA are switching to the binary number system because |
| having more than 1+1 distinct digits is far too woke. |
|+ #MABA + #makeAmericaBinaryAgain + #USA + #USoA + #woke + #MABA + #ma|

On Sunday, October 22, 2023 at 11:35:19 PM UTC+3, yeti wrote:
> Kaz Kylheku <864-11...@kylheku.com> writes:
>
> > On 2023-10-22, Kenny McCormack <gaz...@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
> >> Whoever runs the big servers,
> >> needs to just cut off anything coming from Google.
> >
> > So, like, bye bye Tom Russ, Mark Tarver, Malcolm McLean, Ben Hoyt ...
> Maybe you assume they aren't able to find a different Usenet provider?
> Maybe you assume they aren't able to find a different newsreader?
> Maybe we just should give them a nudge and some help?
> Maybe we should turn that into a "movement"?
>
> This won't be fast.
>
> * Step 0
>
> Find enough participants discussing this idea in a group that fits better
> than this one.
>
> * Step 1
>
> Define a date to start mass ignoring/blocking googlegroups and a
> signature that explains what is coming. Maybe even multiple signatures.
> They should explain that googlegroups users will see a massive drop in
> being read soon and how to find an other news provider. Googlegroups
> users should get some grace time before this happens.
>
> Deadline 20240101?
>
> Additionally instructions for many newsreaders how to block googlegroups
> should be collected in a central place and mentioned in some of these
> signatures.
>
> * Step 2
>
> If this gains enough traction, some providers may dare to start thinking
> about giving googlegroups the Usenet Death Penalty and then individual
> filtering/blocking can be dropped again on the users' side.
>
> * Conclusion
>
> Will this help against spam forever? Yes and no. Usenet spam is older
> than Google. That part of the problem will persist, but the new spam
> tsunamis are caused by GG not caring at all. This part can be cut off.
> Spammers may find other providers and some of those may be as inactive
> as googlegroups. Then rinse and repeat. Another provider to cut off!
>
> * Related
>
> See ...
>
> | Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
> | Subject: Re: OT: Google sanctioned with UDP
> | Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2023 11:22:48 +1100
> | Message-ID: <uh1q0o$21s1a$1...@dont-email.me>
>
> ... mentioning a provider already UDPing googlegroups. Maybe the term
> UDP is a bit overstretched if only one provider is acting this way, but
> it is a start.
>
> --
> |rom The Future. +++ Breaking News From The Future. +++ Breaking News F|
> | The USoA are switching to the binary number system because |
> | having more than 1+1 distinct digits is far too woke. |
> |+ #MABA + #makeAmericaBinaryAgain + #USA + #USoA + #woke + #MABA + #ma|

I can't speak on behalf of each and every GG user, but I personally will not be sorry
if you and Paul and the rest of small noisy 'boycott GG" crowd stop seeing
my posts.
Which does not mean that I approve GG insufficient actions against current
spam flood.

Popping Mad:

> Why would anyone slam this newsgroup so hard with spam?

Several Usenet servers are trying to fight this SPAM, and
i2pn2.org seems to have the best filters so far. Try
reading this group via its anonymous access, and registerd
if you like what you see.

--
() ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments

On 10/21/23 13:02, Popping Mad wrote:
> Why would anyone slam this newsgroup so hard with spam?

I spent the day messing with tin, trn, and Thunderbird jumping back into
Usenet and found this mess. I'm not willing to block all of Google
Groups, so the next best thing would be to kill the poster in the
Injection-Info header.

But tin can't do this, trn is really slow to do it, and Thunderbird's
custom header filter is hopelessly broken. Fffff!

They can all kill based on the Subject, though, so I grabbed a
super-common Thai character and went with that and it seemed effective.
This was with TB; not sure if trn or tin can handle Unicode...?

--
Brian "Beej Jorgensen" Hall - beej.us

Beej Jorgensen <beej@beej.us> writes:

> I'm not willing to block all of Google Groups, so the next best thing
> would be to kill the poster in the Injection-Info header.

It may already be too late? I read this via E-S:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: noel <deletethis@invalid.lan>
Subject: Re: I'm not getting any posts from google groups
Message-ID: <6535ba20$1@news.ausics.net>
Date: 23 Oct 2023 10:11:12 +1000
Organization: Ausics - https://ausics.net

On Sun, 22 Oct 2023 00:55:02 -0230, David Dalton wrote:

> I seem not to be getting any posts from google groups,
> it must be a problem with my Hogwasher filters somehow.

No loss, many servers have accepted the UDP call on them, why should we
constantly play wack-a-mole with those turds since they have displayed
zero care factor about their spam.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many? (o.O)

I hope we'll see a list of servers agreeing on this.

And we should help GG users to get out of there.

--
|rom The Future. +++ Breaking News From The Future. +++ Breaking News F|
| The USoA are switching to the binary number system because |
| having more than 1+1 distinct digits is far too woke. |
|+ #MABA + #makeAmericaBinaryAgain + #USA + #USoA + #woke + #MABA + #ma|

In article <87h6mip026.fsf@tilde.institute>,
yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:
>Beej Jorgensen <beej@beej.us> writes:
>
>> I'm not willing to block all of Google Groups, so the next best thing
>> would be to kill the poster in the Injection-Info header.
>
>It may already be too late? I read this via E-S:
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From: noel <deletethis@invalid.lan>
>Subject: Re: I'm not getting any posts from google groups
>Message-ID: <6535ba20$1@news.ausics.net>
>Date: 23 Oct 2023 10:11:12 +1000
>Organization: Ausics - https://ausics.net
>
>On Sun, 22 Oct 2023 00:55:02 -0230, David Dalton wrote:
>
>> I seem not to be getting any posts from google groups,
>> it must be a problem with my Hogwasher filters somehow.
>
>No loss, many servers have accepted the UDP call on them, why should we
>constantly play wack-a-mole with those turds since they have displayed
>zero care factor about their spam.
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Many? (o.O)
>
>I hope we'll see a list of servers agreeing on this.
>
>And we should help GG users to get out of there.

I know I made the UDP GG call!

>
>--
>|rom The Future. +++ Breaking News From The Future. +++ Breaking News F|
>| The USoA are switching to the binary number system because |
>| having more than 1+1 distinct digits is far too woke. |
>|+ #MABA + #makeAmericaBinaryAgain + #USA + #USoA + #woke + #MABA + #ma|

--
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Yahweh, King & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism ; unsubscribe from Google Groups to be seen
When pride is the most valuable thing, then the life will be misery. -unknown Beware https://mindspring.com

On 10/22/2023 5:22 PM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> Popping Mad:
>
>> Why would anyone slam this newsgroup so hard with spam?
>
> Several Usenet servers are trying to fight this SPAM, and
> i2pn2.org seems to have the best filters so far. Try
> reading this group via its anonymous access, and registerd
> if you like what you see.
>

The i2pn2 server is doing too good a job at spam filtering at the moment
(false positives).

The team is re-calibrating, at the moment.

And if you want to see how bad the attack really is, you
should visit a server that has no filter. It's... pretty bad.
I pulled in 10,000 posts, and that was only about three days worth.
That's not spam. That's a flood.

Paul

On 2023-10-23, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
> On 10/22/2023 5:22 PM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
>> Popping Mad:
>>
>>> Why would anyone slam this newsgroup so hard with spam?
>>
>> Several Usenet servers are trying to fight this SPAM, and
>> i2pn2.org seems to have the best filters so far. Try
>> reading this group via its anonymous access, and registerd
>> if you like what you see.
>>
>
> The i2pn2 server is doing too good a job at spam filtering at the moment
> (false positives).
>
> The team is re-calibrating, at the moment.
>
> And if you want to see how bad the attack really is, you
> should visit a server that has no filter. It's... pretty bad.
> I pulled in 10,000 posts, and that was only about three days worth.
> That's not spam. That's a flood.
>
> Paul
Flood for sure. Effect is killing all google groups posts...

--

7-77-777, Evil Sinner!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/branimir-maksimovic-6762bbaa/

WHo gives a fuck what you care about.

>
> I can't speak on behalf of each and every GG user, but I personally will not be sorry
> if you and Paul and the rest of small noisy 'boycott GG" crowd stop seeing
> my posts.
> Which does not mean that I approve GG insufficient actions against current
> spam flood.
>
>

On 10/23/23 20:05, Branimir Maksimovic wrote:
....
> Flood for sure. Effect is killing all google groups posts...

Not exactly. For some reason it's selective as to which groups get
affected the most - and it's slowly getting less selective. Of the
groups that I monitor, it hit them in order of decreasing daily volume
of legitimate messages.

On Tuesday, October 24, 2023 at 3:06:22 AM UTC+3, Popping Mad wrote:
> WHo gives a fuck what you care about.

Hopefully, there are few comp.lang.c users among those interested in on-topic
and border-line on-topic discussions which give a fuck. Or may be they are not.

Anyway, I firmly believe that the number of comp.lang.c users that give a
fuck about my contributions is bigger than or equal to the number of users
that give a fuck about yours.

Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> writes:

> On Tuesday, October 24, 2023 at 3:06:22?AM UTC+3, [unnamed] wrote:
>
>> WHo gives a [bleep] what you care about.
>
> [...] I firmly believe that the number of comp.lang.c users [who
> care about] my contributions is bigger than or equal to the number
> of users [who care about] yours.

No question in my mind that your contributions are more valuable
than those of the unnamed party.

On 2023-10-23, Beej Jorgensen wrote:
> On 10/21/23 13:02, Popping Mad wrote:
>> Why would anyone slam this newsgroup so hard with spam?
>
> I spent the day messing with tin, trn, and Thunderbird jumping back into
> Usenet and found this mess. I'm not willing to block all of Google
> Groups, so the next best thing would be to kill the poster in the
> Injection-Info header.
>
> But tin can't do this, trn is really slow to do it, and Thunderbird's
> custom header filter is hopelessly broken. Fffff!
>
> They can all kill based on the Subject, though, so I grabbed a
> super-common Thai character and went with that and it seemed effective.
> This was with TB; not sure if trn or tin can handle Unicode...?

In slrn, I ended up plopping the following into my scorefile using
the following regular expression, generated by ChatGPT:

%BOS
%Score created on Thu Oct 19 23:25:36 2023
% block all korean language subjects

[comp.lang.c]
Score: =-9999
%Expires:
Subject: [가-힣]+
%EOS

Yes, technically it might block legitimate C-related articles in the
Korean language, but I wouldn't be able to understand those anyway,
so... ;-)

On 2023-10-24, Poprocks <please@replytogroup.com> wrote:
> On 2023-10-23, Beej Jorgensen wrote:
>> On 10/21/23 13:02, Popping Mad wrote:
>>> Why would anyone slam this newsgroup so hard with spam?
>>
>> I spent the day messing with tin, trn, and Thunderbird jumping back into
>> Usenet and found this mess. I'm not willing to block all of Google
>> Groups, so the next best thing would be to kill the poster in the
>> Injection-Info header.
>>
>> But tin can't do this, trn is really slow to do it, and Thunderbird's
>> custom header filter is hopelessly broken. Fffff!
>>
>> They can all kill based on the Subject, though, so I grabbed a
>> super-common Thai character and went with that and it seemed effective.
>> This was with TB; not sure if trn or tin can handle Unicode...?
>
> In slrn, I ended up plopping the following into my scorefile using
> the following regular expression, generated by ChatGPT:
>
> %BOS
> %Score created on Thu Oct 19 23:25:36 2023
> % block all korean language subjects
>
> [comp.lang.c]
> Score: =-9999
> %Expires:
> Subject: [가-힣]+
> %EOS
>
> Yes, technically it might block legitimate C-related articles in the
> Korean language, but I wouldn't be able to understand those anyway,
> so... ;-)
Thank you! It is better then killin all google groups posting!

--

7-77-777, Evil Sinner!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/branimir-maksimovic-6762bbaa/