Re: [gpsd-users] Problems with the gpsd website move

[Dave Hart]

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 11:17, Ed W <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Google groops is a spam-ridden shitpile that I won't touch.  But
>> that's a detail.
>
> I think personal experience probably skews things a lot here.  I don't see
> any intrinsic reason why there should be more or less spam directed to a
> mailing list at any big aggregator?
>
> In the past it's been popular to write bots to signup to all the mailing
> lists at all the big hubs.  I dare say that google groups is an interesting
> target in the same way.
>
> Personally I see very little spam on all the mailing lists I read.  Looking
> now I see that quite a lot are run with @googlegroups mailing lists.  I
> don't obviously note more or less spam to those groups.  In fact I would say
> that all have near vanishingly small levels of spam...

Google Groups is a many-headed beast.  In addition to being a free
mailing list host for both open and closed lists, it's also the only
free-of-charge usenet newsgroup access option for the masses, with a
decent if not overwhelming historical archive to boot.  On that front
it is also a spam scourge -- a disturbing amount of spam to a
newsgroup I watch is originated using throwaway accounts on Google
Groups.  In lovable "too big to cut off" behavior, there is very
little human supervision.  Other users of GG can report postings as
spam, and I'm sure the gets the throwaway accounts closed eventually,
but that's a reactive strategy doomed to fail with a determined
spammer willing to pay CAPTCHA readers to help automate thowaway
account setup.  Google's abuse handling is 100% opaque/one-way.

>From my perspective it seems Google puts a lot more effort into
filtering spam from GMail inboxes than it does preventing spam from
throwaway users via Google Groups from reaching others' mail and news
systems.  One might admire the efficiency of the externalizing of
costs, or resent it, or both.

Cheers,
Dave Hart