OT: Political Spam - what can you do about it?

[redhat]

On Thu, 2004-10-28 at 20:09, Nifty Hat Mitch wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 08:23:38AM +0100, Paul Howarth wrote:
> > On Thu, 2004-10-28 at 00:02, Nifty Hat Mitch wrote:
> > > Blacklisting for an ISP is not a good thing but it can also be used to
> > > advantage. 
> ....
> > If you follow this policy, the likely result is that all your nets would
> > end up blacklisted anyway. Many of the blacklists would initially list
> > only the "problem" net,...
> 
> You are correct.  However in this case the initial poster was at a
> Public Utility (electricity, phone, and ISP).  I suspect that his
> service obligations as a utility might be different than many service
> providers. 
> 
> Almost all dial-up nets are known and if not blacklisted they are on a
> grey list.  i.e.
>    RCVD_IN_DYNABLOCK RBL: Sent directly from dynamic IP address
> 
> In almost all 'utility' situations there must be a well documented
> process to turn off service.  There may also be a public hearing of
> changes to varius service agreements.  My thought is that step one is
> to identify and isolate the individuals in a way that quality spam
> detectors will identify the message as possible spam.
> 
> Of interest each day 5-10 fedora messages trigger incoming spam flags
> in part because of the senders domain and IP addresses.
> 
> In this case there is a real need to not trip on free speach rights.
> As a utility the original poster may need to exercise more caution
> (process) than a business oriented ISP.
> 
> As I scanned the site, there was mostly dialup so a number of other
> service (AOL, EarthLink... ) vendor options would be available.
> 
> I would make sure that there is a rich help text that covers 
> dozens of mail readers and describes how to filter mail from
> unwanted senders.   Any complaint should include a pointer to 
> this type of help...
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 	T o m  M i t c h e l l 
> 	May your cup runneth over with goodness and mercy
> 	and may your buffers never overflow.
Tom,
You have really hit the nail on the head.  Being a public utility we are
under different constraints than a normal ISP.  This one reason why I
did not post a response to many of the other replies to my initial
letter.  Most people do not understand that we cannot just "turn off" a
customer like a regular ISP can.
thanks,
Doug