On Wed, 2009-05-27 at 09:28 -0700, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> Lately we've been seeing a LOT of spam being sent to the mailing list
> subscribe mechanism, with the side effect that the subscribe mechanism
> responds to the From header address with a confirmation request. That
> address (along with the envelope sender) are unfortunately forged.
> 
> The volume of the confirmation requests is getting worse than direct
> spams, because the spam filtering considers the confirmation requests to
> be valid email (they would be, except for the fact they are
> unsolicited).
> 
> To combat this problem, I'd like us to consider switching the subscribe
> mechanism for the mailing lists to be a web form (protected with
> recaptcha). Unsubscribe will continue to be offered as an email action
> for the moment, because it ignores the mail if the address was not
> subscribed.

Fine with me.  I've been getting quite a few of these lately, and since
I sometimes do subscribe to new lists, I have to look at them before
discarding.

Regards,
Ferris
-- 
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@g.o>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Sparc, Userrel, Trustees)