May 20, 2003 update to all users:

Lately there's been a trend in spam reduction methods called Challenge-Response. This is when you send someone an e-mail and anautomated program intervenes on their behalf and asks you to prove that you are human before the message is delivered. Earthlink has considered implementing this system for their users and other Internet providers are likely to follow suit. If your ISP is considering a system like this, be sure and "white list" the e-mails of any lists on this system that you are subscribed to. I won't confirm any automated responses received by the mailing list software (after all, it isn't a real live human, even though one runs it) and your list messages will simply go undelivered. You'll be removed from a list automatically after a couple of failures. If your ISP's challenge response system decides to annoy individual list members for a confirmation of their posts to mailing lists you're subscribed to, the list ops may choose to remove you until the problem is resolved.

• This American Life
• Neo-Futurists
• Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists

Update June 25, 2003:

I understand C-R as a concept and basically there were just two points that my earlier message was trying to get across:

1. The mailing list machine won't confirm a challenge response because it's a machine. Even if I happen to get the response challenge in my personal mailbox because the machine can't figure out what to do with it, it was still addressed to the machine, so I'm going to answer it. People who need to talk to the machine (to subscribe or unsubscribe or receive list posts) need to white list it first. Harsh, but its just playing by the rules of the game.

2. Some people dislike C-R challenges even more than I do, and they especially hate them when it comes in response to a note that they posted to a public mailing list. If complaints come in from other subscribers about a broken C-R responder (they should be programmed not to reply to e-mails that identify themselves as list mail or bulk mail) then the subscriber using that C-R system runs the risk of being removed from the list by the list operator as a courtesy to the other participants.

Earthlink is perfectly justified in their decisions, but it has both the expected benefits and some possible costs associated with it.

Update October 20, 2003: Server statistics are now online.

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