The mailing list for listmasters using Sympa

["Eric G. Wolfe" <address@concealed>]

Eddy, another user on the Sympa Users mailing list had suggested 
integrating the "I am not a spammer" cookie from arc_protect.tt2 into 
lists.tt2.  I have not quite figured out the best way to do this yet.

One thing I have done in the meantime is add a restrictive robots.txt to 
possibly prevent indexing.  That really assumes the harvester respects 
the file though.  You can see our robots.txt here: 
http://lists.marshall.edu/robots.txt

Eric G. Wolfe
Senior Linux Administrator,
IT Infrastructure Systems
--------------------------------------
Marshall University Computing Services
Drinko Library 428-K
One John Marshall Dr.
Huntington, WV 25755
Phone: 304.696.3428
Email: address@concealed

The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an
open doorway with an open mind.
                -- E. B. White



Eddy Beliveau wrote:
> -------- Message original --------
> Sujet : [sympa-users] Spammer harvesting the /sympa/lists page
> De : Eric G. Wolfe <address@concealed>
> Pour : address@concealed <address@concealed>
> Date : 2009-11-30 16:40
>   
> > We are still using Sympa 5.4.7 in production at the moment.  However, 
> > I noticed this same problem in the Sympa 6.0 lists.tt2 file.
> >
> > Currently, the "List of lists" loops through the mailing lists and 
> > uses javascript document.write(<list name> + @ <robot name>).  
> > Recently our "List of lists" page was harvested and a Spam message 
> > went out to all the mailing lists.  This message did not make it to 
> > any of the mailing lists, but was instead stopped by our gateway Spam 
> > filter.
> >
> > My concern is the fact that the page was harvested.  I am guessing 
> > this is because the javascript output could easily be decoded with a 
> > tiny bit of Perl and the LWP module.
> >
> > I'm curious is there currently any way to protect the /lists page 
> > through obfuscation, or a cookie?  Are any list masters taking 
> > measures to protect this page, from harvesting, on their production 
> > systems?
> >
> >     
> Hi! Eric,
>
> We have the same configuration as yours and have the same concern about 
> harvesting.
>
> Did you get some interesting solution ?
>
> Thanks
> Eddy
>
>