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EFF on mailing lists and spam

The EFF has put out a a lengthy document describing its concerns with contemporary spam filtering techniques. "Blind keyword or phrase blocking is the determination that messages will not be delivered because they contain specific words or phrases. This method is imprecise and unnecessary, especially now that more sophisticated tools are available. Moreover, it can be used to block messages for political reasons. In short, there's no defensible reason to label email as spam based solely on keywords or phrases."
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EFF on mailing lists and spam

Posted Nov 18, 2004 15:13 UTC (Thu) by kitterma (guest, #4448) [Link]

Well, they definitely have a perspective.

Their complaints about activists being unable send e-mail using letter writing software demonstrate a lack of familiarity with the technology.

The problem with being unable to deliver mail from a third party sender because of SPF checks is easy enough to deal with. Set the envelope sender (return path) to an entity local to the sending server and just put the customer supplied e-mail address in the message From:.

Domain forgery isn't going to be stopped without people having to adapt. As such things go, this one seems pretty minor.

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