[SURBL-Discuss] To MUNGE to not to MUNGE

[Ryan Thompson]

William Stearns wrote to SURBL Discussion list:

> Good morning, Ryan,
>
> On Wed, 1 Sep 2004, Ryan Thompson wrote:
>
> > I know the SURBL.org FAQ documents the use of "MUNGED" to munge URIs
> > for discussion. Personally, I think it's silly to do that while
> > sending to this list, especially since, in the same heading,
> > SURBL.org also suggests "It's probably a good idea to use less
> > filtering on your anti-spam mailing list messages, or even to
> > whitelist them". I think
>
> 	Please remember that discussion of blacklisted domains also
> happens outside of this mailing list.  I've had experiences where my
> emails to an sa-blacklist contributor about a blacklisted domain got
> relegated to a spam folder.

Agreed. Thus my comment (still quoted) of "it's silly to do that _while
sending to this list_". What happens in private email is really up to
the sender and recipient, and not within my intended scope of
discussion.

> Then how about a compromise?  Instead of someMUNGEDwebsite.com,
> how about "somewebsite .com".  Still completely human readable,
> but skips past spam filters.  A win for everybody?

I'd rather not have *any* munging on mailing list mail. If you need to
munge domains in private correspondence (and I do think *that* is still
a good practice), that's really a separate discussion.

> > Oh, by the way, SpamAssassin, at least (and all others that I'm
> > aware of), will not even parse body tokens of the form domain.com or
> > 127.0.0.2
>
> Spamassassin doesn't, but less sophisticated filters may not be so
> smart.

Right, and I'll even advocate spending some time to help fix them. :-)

- Ryan

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   Ryan Thompson <ryan at sasknow.com>

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