5 ms·

It's only not a problem because centralized megacorps solved it and everyone has to use them because of the spam problem. If you're trying to come up with a mo

It's only not a problem because centralized megacorps solved it and everyone has to use them because of the spam problem. If you're trying to come up with a model that isn't using centralized companies to solve the problem for you then it's still a problem. Part of the incentive towards centralization is because the spam problem is hard to solve in a decentralized way with the modern web.

Teever 6y ago
I've wondered how much spam filters actually cost in terms of compute resources and electricity. I bet it's a lot. I bet there has to be a better way.
- edoceo 6y ago
  One tool I use is called greylog for postfix. Effective for me.
ghaff 6y ago
Totally fair. Though the only way to solve spam control in a decentralized way is probably to put in a system that no one will actually use.
jjav 6y ago
> It's only not a problem because centralized megacorps solved it and everyone has to use them because of the spam problem. Is this a perception or do you have data on this? See my response to parent. Email spam from the point of view of self-hosted infrastructure is no longer a problem in my experience. No megacorps needed (or wanted, IMO).
- michaelt 6y ago
  The problem I had, when I tried to de-megacorp my e-mail, was with knowing whether the e-mails I sent got reliably delivered. I set up SPF, DKIM, DMARC, used an IP not on any blacklists, and so on - everything guides told me I ought to do. Still, not only would my test messages often go to spam, I'm pretty sure I saw some vanish entirely, not even making it to the spam folder. And this is a very insidious problem - did I e-mail X and they just didn't deign to reply? Or did my message never reach them?
  - Snitch-Thursday 6y ago
    I wish there was a 1-step process for white-listing known good emails, for a single address, or a single domain, or a list of either. I also wish there was a process for exporting/importing these lists. With SPF/DKIM/DMARC (whichever of those verifies that the email header was actually set by someone who has access to that email sending address) on and open-relay on STMP turned off, I envision a web-of-trust-lite world (which is probably the wheel I'm reinventing) where I and everyone I exchange email-address-trust-cards like business cards help to crowdsource what is and is not spam based on shared whitelists and degree-of-separation weighting. If I think something is spam, my 1st degree of separation (who has handshaked with me to verify that yes we've met) also probably does, but his colleague, maybe not. MUAs and online email service providers would check the compiled whitelist for each account before running their own spam filtering. We have good online adblock lists, can we do the same for email spamlists without 27 clicks to whitelist or blacklist emails? Servers would have to not blackhole spam-tripping emails and reply with 'you spam = bad', that is another problem entirely.
umanwizard 6y ago
Personal anecdote: I wrote my own email server; it has no spam blocking of any kind other than checking the Spamhaus blacklist. That gets me down to a spam message every few days at most.

Teever 6y ago

I've wondered how much spam filters actually cost in terms of compute resources and electricity. I bet it's a lot. I bet there has to be a better way.

edoceo 6y ago
One tool I use is called greylog for postfix. Effective for me.

ghaff 6y ago

Totally fair. Though the only way to solve spam control in a decentralized way is probably to put in a system that no one will actually use.

jjav 6y ago

> It's only not a problem because centralized megacorps solved it and everyone has to use them because of the spam problem. Is this a perception or do you have data on this? See my response to parent. Email spam from the point of view of self-hosted infrastructure is no longer a problem in my experience. No megacorps needed (or wanted, IMO).

michaelt 6y ago
The problem I had, when I tried to de-megacorp my e-mail, was with knowing whether the e-mails I sent got reliably delivered. I set up SPF, DKIM, DMARC, used an IP not on any blacklists, and so on - everything guides told me I ought to do. Still, not only would my test messages often go to spam, I'm pretty sure I saw some vanish entirely, not even making it to the spam folder. And this is a very insidious problem - did I e-mail X and they just didn't deign to reply? Or did my message never reach them?
- Snitch-Thursday 6y ago
  I wish there was a 1-step process for white-listing known good emails, for a single address, or a single domain, or a list of either. I also wish there was a process for exporting/importing these lists. With SPF/DKIM/DMARC (whichever of those verifies that the email header was actually set by someone who has access to that email sending address) on and open-relay on STMP turned off, I envision a web-of-trust-lite world (which is probably the wheel I'm reinventing) where I and everyone I exchange email-address-trust-cards like business cards help to crowdsource what is and is not spam based on shared whitelists and degree-of-separation weighting. If I think something is spam, my 1st degree of separation (who has handshaked with me to verify that yes we've met) also probably does, but his colleague, maybe not. MUAs and online email service providers would check the compiled whitelist for each account before running their own spam filtering. We have good online adblock lists, can we do the same for email spamlists without 27 clicks to whitelist or blacklist emails? Servers would have to not blackhole spam-tripping emails and reply with 'you spam = bad', that is another problem entirely.

umanwizard 6y ago

Personal anecdote: I wrote my own email server; it has no spam blocking of any kind other than checking the Spamhaus blacklist. That gets me down to a spam message every few days at most.