Google-groups [was: linked lists in Perl]

[Richard Harnden]

...

Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.misc
Subject: Re: printf with trailing dots ?
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2023 19:35:23 +0000
It would have been strange if the group had gone totally downhill in
3 months.

It has. It's mostly flooded with sex and (illegal) drug ads.

That will diminish in 6 days.

Why? They already stopped all posting of new messages through GG. All
that's going to happen on 2024-02-22 is that they're going to stop
displaying any new messages, regardless of where they are posted. If you
use GG, all new posts will stop completely, regardless of sender or
newsgroup. If you don't use GG, if your newsserver has good filtering,
you won't see those messages, and if your newsserver has poor filteing,
you should continue seeing those messages.

They stopped new posts from some, but not all, groups.
They have promised to depeer themselves completely on the 22nd.

Which means all the spam will move to those servers that handle binaries
- simply because those admins either don't care, or won't notice because
then increase in bandwidth is basically zero for them.

[The Doctor]

Post by Richard Harnden

...

Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.misc
Subject: Re: printf with trailing dots ?
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2023 19:35:23 +0000
It would have been strange if the group had gone totally downhill in
3 months.

It has. It's mostly flooded with sex and (illegal) drug ads.

That will diminish in 6 days.

Why? They already stopped all posting of new messages through GG. All
that's going to happen on 2024-02-22 is that they're going to stop
displaying any new messages, regardless of where they are posted. If you
use GG, all new posts will stop completely, regardless of sender or
newsgroup. If you don't use GG, if your newsserver has good filtering,
you won't see those messages, and if your newsserver has poor filteing,
you should continue seeing those messages.

They stopped new posts from some, but not all, groups.
They have promised to depeer themselves completely on the 22nd.
Which means all the spam will move to those servers that handle binaries
- simply because those admins either don't care, or won't notice because
then increase in bandwidth is basically zero for them.

Well the good news is no more Google Groups spam!

[Marco Moock]

Spammers will have to pay this servers to post spam which will be
almost useless regarding to usenet population, and even the
configuration will be harder to understand for them, I don't think
they still have bots designed for usenet. So I think there will be
very few of them, even legit users who have been told for weeks to
use something else than Google struggle with it, so we can hope that
it will be almost zero.

One of the spammers use Abavia and they post generated content
(looks like a KI discussion) there.
Some also use vipernews/uzoreto for normal spam.

[Eric M]

Post by Marco Moock

Spammers will have to pay this servers to post spam which will be
almost useless regarding to usenet population, and even the
configuration will be harder to understand for them, I don't think
they still have bots designed for usenet. So I think there will be
very few of them, even legit users who have been told for weeks to
use something else than Google struggle with it, so we can hope that
it will be almost zero.

One of the spammers use Abavia and they post generated content
(looks like a KI discussion) there.
Some also use vipernews/uzoreto for normal spam.

I don't say there will be no spammers anymore, but there will surely be
less spammers.

[Spiros Bousbouras]

On Sun, 18 Feb 24 19:41:04 +0000

Post by Richard Harnden
They stopped new posts from some, but not all, groups.
They have promised to depeer themselves completely on the 22nd.
Which means all the spam will move to those servers that handle binaries
- simply because those admins either don't care, or won't notice because
then increase in bandwidth is basically zero for them.

Spammers will have to pay this servers to post spam which will be almost
useless regarding to usenet population, and even the configuration will be
harder to understand for them, I don't think they still have bots designed
for usenet. So I think there will be very few of them, even legit users
who have been told for weeks to use something else than Google struggle
with it, so we can hope that it will be almost zero.

In just 1 group (comp.lang.lisp) in the last 2 days I see the following spam
posts not from googlegroups :

<***@4ax.com>
<***@4ax.com>
<***@4ax.com>
<***@4ax.com>
<***@4ax.com>
<***@4ax.com>
<***@4ax.com>
<***@4ax.com>
<***@4ax.com>
<***@4ax.com>

There are many more from googlegroups.

[yamo']

Hi,

Post by Spiros Bousbouras
In just 1 group (comp.lang.lisp) in the last 2 days I see the following spam

Newsgroups: microsoft.public.excel,microsoft.public.mac.office.word
,microsoft.public.word.vba.beginners,microsoft.public.word.docmanagement
,soc.culture.punjab,microsoft.public.platformsdk.security,comp.lang.lisp
,microsoft.public.windows.server.networking,comp.lang.perl.misc
,dbase.programming


That why I'm filtering the Path : news.xlned.com

[Ray Banana]

Post by yamo'
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.excel,microsoft.public.mac.office.word
,microsoft.public.word.vba.beginners,microsoft.public.word.docmanagement
,soc.culture.punjab,microsoft.public.platformsdk.security,comp.lang.lisp
,microsoft.public.windows.server.networking,comp.lang.perl.misc
,dbase.programming

Crosspost to 10 groups.

That's why this spam doesn't even make it to the spam filter, i.e. the
article is rejected long before nocems would be generated.

Post by yamo'
That why I'm filtering the Path : news.xlned.com

news.xlned.com is also listed as a source of interest on E-S.
Even more interesting is abavia.com, who have been sending up to
3000 spam articles per day for more than 3 months. So far they have only
focussed on the German hierarchy, but I'm sure this can be changed any
time and their spam is much more sophisticated than the Google spam we
have seen so far.

[Ray Banana]

Post by Ray Banana
news.xlned.com is also listed as a source of interest on E-S.
Even more interesting is abavia.com, who have been sending up to
3000 spam articles per day for more than 3 months. So far they
have only focussed on the German hierarchy, but I'm sure this can
be changed any time and their spam is much more sophisticated than
the Google spam we have seen so far.

That explains it!!! I was using an Abavia re-seller from the
Netherlands and anything I replied to with a lot of cross-posts
'disappeared' (as in, caught in a spam filter somewhere). Some of my
own posts never made it through if they were cross-posted and/or
contained URL links.

If these were false positives, I would appreciate a couple of M-IDs to
double-check.

I didn't realise Abavia were irresponsible.

They were polite, but indifferent ;-)

[Retro Guy]

Post by Ray Banana

Post by Ray Banana
news.xlned.com is also listed as a source of interest on E-S.
Even more interesting is abavia.com, who have been sending up to
3000 spam articles per day for more than 3 months. So far they
have only focussed on the German hierarchy, but I'm sure this can
be changed any time and their spam is much more sophisticated than
the Google spam we have seen so far.

That explains it!!! I was using an Abavia re-seller from the
Netherlands and anything I replied to with a lot of cross-posts
'disappeared' (as in, caught in a spam filter somewhere). Some of my
own posts never made it through if they were cross-posted and/or
contained URL links.

If these were false positives, I would appreciate a couple of M-IDs to
double-check.

Yes please, as Ray says, if you could post a MID of suspected false
positives, it helps all NoCeM senders to improve our filters to avoid such
things :)

[Blueshirt]

Post by Ray Banana

Post by Ray Banana
news.xlned.com is also listed as a source of interest on E-S.
Even more interesting is abavia.com, who have been sending up to
3000 spam articles per day for more than 3 months. So far they
have only focussed on the German hierarchy, but I'm sure this
be changed any time and their spam is much more
sophisticated than the Google spam we have seen so far.

That explains it!!! I was using an Abavia re-seller from the
Netherlands and anything I replied to with a lot of cross-posts
'disappeared' (as in, caught in a spam filter somewhere). Some
of my own posts never made it through if they were cross-posted
and/or contained URL links.

If these were false positives, I would appreciate a couple of
M-IDs to double-check.

Eternal-september actually carried the messages, so it wasn't a
problem with your server. The 'missing' messages were posted via my
XS News account (reader.xsnews.nl) with Abavia.com [automatically]
in the organisation header. The person on RADW that said they didn't
see my original post(s) and only saw the replies to them was using
news.kruemel.org. So I am assuming the problem lies in that
direction. Everyone else seemed to see the posts and replied
normally. (The messages reached GG too.)

[The Doctor]

Post by Ray Banana
news.xlned.com is also listed as a source of interest on E-S.
Even more interesting is abavia.com, who have been sending up to
3000 spam articles per day for more than 3 months. So far they
have only focussed on the German hierarchy, but I'm sure this can
be changed any time and their spam is much more sophisticated than
the Google spam we have seen so far.

That explains it!!! I was using an Abavia re-seller from the
Netherlands and anything I replied to with a lot of cross-posts
'disappeared' (as in, caught in a spam filter somewhere). Some of my
own posts never made it through if they were cross-posted and/or
contained URL links.
I didn't realise Abavia were irresponsible.

I wonder if I should add them in!

[candycanearter07]

Post by Richard Harnden

...

Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.misc
Subject: Re: printf with trailing dots ?
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2023 19:35:23 +0000
It would have been strange if the group had gone totally downhill in
3 months.

It has. It's mostly flooded with sex and (illegal) drug ads.

That will diminish in 6 days.

Why? They already stopped all posting of new messages through GG. All
that's going to happen on 2024-02-22 is that they're going to stop
displaying any new messages, regardless of where they are posted. If you
use GG, all new posts will stop completely, regardless of sender or
newsgroup. If you don't use GG, if your newsserver has good filtering,
you won't see those messages, and if your newsserver has poor filteing,
you should continue seeing those messages.

They stopped new posts from some, but not all, groups.
They have promised to depeer themselves completely on the 22nd.
Which means all the spam will move to those servers that handle binaries
- simply because those admins either don't care, or won't notice because
then increase in bandwidth is basically zero for them.

Well, at least there's a chance they will care. Most of those servers
are paid, anyways.

[candycanearter07]

Post by Richard Harnden
They stopped new posts from some, but not all, groups.
They have promised to depeer themselves completely on the 22nd.
Which means all the spam will move to those servers that handle binaries
- simply because those admins either don't care, or won't notice because
then increase in bandwidth is basically zero for them.

Spammers will have to pay this servers to post spam which will be almost
useless regarding to usenet population, and even the configuration will be
harder to understand for them, I don't think they still have bots designed
for usenet. So I think there will be very few of them, even legit users
who have been told for weeks to use something else than Google struggle
with it, so we can hope that it will be almost zero.

almost 0 being the key.

Well any decrease is good.