• Keywords header

    From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to VanguardLH on Thu May 6 06:06:32 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

    Panix has been ignored-flagged by me ever since
    they decided to spamify all posts that originate at them by appending a deliberately invalid signature (so clients that hide sigs won't work).
    I wasn't interested in seeing posts by users of a spamifying Usenet
    provider.
    ...
    Has Panix ceased spamifying the articles submitted to them?
    ...

    Oh, I also have a filter on foul-mouthed posters. Several test on
    headers (Subject, From, Organization, Keywords, or X-headers) with a
    value containing foul words, like "fuck". Yep, you have one:

    X-US-Congress: Moronic Fucks.

    Although I changed my Panix filter to no longer ignore-flag those posts
    (but keep colorizing them to remind me to monitor them for a while
    longer), I'm not removing my filter against inane posters. I'll only
    see your reply if I remember later to revisit the firefox and readers newsgroups to select All Messages View to see if you replied.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to Eli the Bearded on Thu May 6 05:52:32 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:

    Crossposted and follow-ups set.

    FollowUp-To ignored. It is rude to yank away a conversation from other
    readers in the original newsgroup to which you posted by redirecting
    replies to elsewhere than the original location.

    VanguardLH <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

    I see you decided to steal my Keywords string.

    It is a rn / trn feature to preserve the Keywords: in follow-ups. I
    seldom examine them, since they are usually blank. Checking my post
    archive I see this is not the first time you've gotten me like that.
    ...

    Can I ask why? Or what you hope to get out of those keywords?

    In addition to the From header, I use both the right token of the
    Message-ID and the Keywords headers to make sure anyone that wants to
    identify me, even to plonk me, has multiple and stable headers on which
    to filter. If they wanted to ensure their filter only targeted me, or
    they wanted to ensure a search only showed my posts, and not
    accidentally on someone else, they can test on:

    - Path injection node
    - AND From
    - AND Organization
    - AND Message-ID
    - AND Keywords.

    Or, they could use just the From header for easy if filter definition,
    too, but it's easy to catch forgers, especially since their Path
    injection node won't be the same as mine (well, not for long since I use responsive Usenet providers that can kill the forger's account very
    quickly, and another reason I quit using freebie Usenet providers since
    the forger would have to pay to get an account). I give lots of
    compounded targets to identify me.

    https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1036
    Section 2.2.9
    A few well-selected keywords identifying the message should be on this
    line. This is used as an aid in determining if this message is
    interesting to the reader.

    https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.5
    The "Keywords:" field contains a comma-separated list of one or more
    words or quoted-strings.
    ...
    These three fields are intended to have only human-readable content
    with information about the message.
    ...
    The "Keywords:" field contains a comma- separated list of important
    words and phrases that might be useful for the recipient.

    I would also use the "Comments:" header to further strengthen my Usenet identity, but my client doesn't let me add that one. No, I'm not going
    to PGP-sign my posts, because it is stupid since no one in Usenet is
    going to bother doing the lookup.

    While I can select a view that always shows all headers, that is usually
    a bunch of noise (as is often the attribution lines where posters think
    they have to add lots of duplicated info that is already available in
    the headers). I only occasionally look at all headers, so it is
    possible that I previously missed someone just copying my Keywords
    header into their reply. From what I seen in many NNTP clients, they
    generate their own Keywords header, if specified (non-blank), not
    forward a value from what some other client specified in a parent post.
    The RFC definition of the Keywords header is rather vague and very
    terse. Just didn't figure any client would not use its own value.

    I don't delete any unwanted posts. Instead my filters colorize them and
    add an Ignore flag. I use a default view of Hide Ignored Posts;
    however, if I need to check my filters for false positives or someone
    mentions something in an otherwise hidden post, I can just switch to the
    Show All Messages view. When I showed all messages, including the ignore-flagged ones, I saw your post. It was colorized, because it
    originated from Panix. So, I looked at the raw source of your message
    to see your Keywords header duplicated mine instead of your client
    adding its own value. Panix has been ignored-flagged by me ever since
    they decided to spamify all posts that originate at them by appending a deliberately invalid signature (so clients that hide sigs won't work).
    I wasn't interested in seeing posts by users of a spamifying Usenet
    provider.

    I've see Avast users, and other anti-virus program users, that spamify
    their Usenet posts (and e-mails). Avast does the same as did/does
    Panix: use an invalid sigdash line followed by 1, or more, lines of spam announcing the users employs Avast. The default config in Avast is to
    add the invalid sigblock. I'll alert such users that they are spamming
    their choice of anti-virus software, and to turn it off. If they
    continue to refuse, and because they choose to be spamming affiliates,
    they'll get kill filed. I did the same to Panix when they were
    appending their invalid sigblock to all submissions.

    Has Panix ceased spamifying the articles submitted to them? I don't see
    it in your posts. Did they ever offer free trials, and those are the submissions they spamified (as a lure to get those users to move to
    their pay service)? If Panix is no longer spammifying their articles, I
    will modify my filter on them to stop flagging them as ignored. I'll
    still colorize them for awhile to watch if any spammified posts show up.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=CF?=@21:1/5 to VanguardLH on Thu May 6 14:39:53 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.dev.null

    VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

    Organization: Usenet Elder

    You da man, oh yes.

    --
    fold, spindle, mutilate.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Adam H. Kerman@21:1/5 to VanguardLH on Thu May 6 15:14:10 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    VanguardLH <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

    Oh, I also have a filter on foul-mouthed posters. Several test on
    headers (Subject, From, Organization, Keywords, or X-headers) with a
    value containing foul words, like "fuck". Yep, you have one:

    X-US-Congress: Moronic Fucks. . . .

    Who the fuck cares what you filter with your fucking kill file? It's
    none of fucking Usenet's fucking business.

    Fuck. Fucking public plonking announcements are fucking immature.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From J. P. Gilliver (John)@21:1/5 to Adam H. Kerman on Thu May 6 18:04:52 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    On Thu, 6 May 2021 at 15:14:10, Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote
    (my responses usually follow points raised):
    VanguardLH <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

    Oh, I also have a filter on foul-mouthed posters. Several test on
    headers (Subject, From, Organization, Keywords, or X-headers) with a
    value containing foul words, like "fuck". Yep, you have one:

    X-US-Congress: Moronic Fucks. . . .

    Who the fuck cares what you filter with your fucking kill file? It's
    none of fucking Usenet's fucking business.

    Fuck. Fucking public plonking announcements are fucking immature.

    It gives me great pleasure to be (actually, only appear) immature in
    this case then.
    --
    J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

    If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Eli the Bearded@21:1/5 to invalid@invalid.invalid on Thu May 6 18:11:45 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    In news.software.readers, VanguardLH <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
    Crossposted and follow-ups set.
    FollowUp-To ignored. It is rude to yank away a conversation from other readers in the original newsgroup to which you posted by redirecting
    replies to elsewhere than the original location.

    It's rude to post off-topic content in a group. I knew you have posted
    to news.software.readers in the past, so it seemed the politer thing to
    do.

    Can I ask why? Or what you hope to get out of those keywords?
    In addition to the From header, I use both the right token of the
    Message-ID and the Keywords headers to make sure anyone that wants to identify me, even to plonk me, has multiple and stable headers on which
    to filter. If they wanted to ensure their filter only targeted me, or
    they wanted to ensure a search only showed my posts, and not
    accidentally on someone else, they can test on:

    Anyone wanting to plonk people should be glad to have a stable
    message-id to do so. Message-IDs are in the overview headers, so are
    fast to get and filter on. Even better, filterable message IDs mean
    you can filter replies easily too, via References. In my case, I
    autoselect responses with my qaz.wtf host in References.

    Keywords is generally not in overview, you can only use it to filter
    after loading all headers or the entire article. For optimization
    reasons, I only filter with overview headers.

    While I can select a view that always shows all headers, that is usually
    a bunch of noise (as is often the attribution lines where posters think
    they have to add lots of duplicated info that is already available in
    the headers). I only occasionally look at all headers, so it is
    possible that I previously missed someone just copying my Keywords
    header into their reply.

    I'm having a hard time finding rn code online now, but I'm quite sure
    the trn code has done that a long time, and I'm fairly sure the original
    rn did it, too. The official trn source is at Sourceforge which does
    not, unlike github, allow browsing of the code commit history.

    It was colorized, because it originated from Panix. So, I looked at the raw source of your message
    to see your Keywords header duplicated mine instead of your client
    adding its own value. Panix has been ignored-flagged by me ever since
    they decided to spamify all posts that originate at them by appending a deliberately invalid signature (so clients that hide sigs won't work).
    I wasn't interested in seeing posts by users of a spamifying Usenet
    provider.

    I don't believe you. Panix has never "spamif[ied] all posts". Panix
    has never forced users to post with a signature nor provided a default
    one for users.

    Panix is one of the soundest Usenet sites around. It's home to Seth
    Breidbart of "Breidbart Index", Mike Godwin of "Godwin's Law", Jesse
    Sheidlower author of dictionary _The F Word_ (relevant to your profanity concerns). Multiple moderated groups are using Panix news servers as
    origins. I know comp.risks and rec.humor.oracle, and I think soc.singles.moderated, sci.space.* and rec.radio.amateur.moderated still
    are. I'm also reasonably sure Panix still runs "News Shogun" to
    proactively stop spammers, even though the Usenet II experiment it was
    created for has long since died:

    https://www.panix.com/shogun/

    Panix is also not selling itself as a "Usenet provider". Usenet is a
    feature available to customers of their shell and virtual hosting
    customers. The Panix list of services offered doesn't seem to mention
    "Usenet", they call it "netnews".

    Elijah
    ------
    owns the domain used in his message IDs

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Frank Slootweg@21:1/5 to VanguardLH on Thu May 6 17:49:41 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
    [...]

    I've see Avast users, and other anti-virus program users, that spamify
    their Usenet posts (and e-mails). Avast does the same as did/does
    Panix: use an invalid sigdash line followed by 1, or more, lines of spam announcing the users employs Avast.

    FYI, AFAICT Avast does no longer generate an invalid sigdash line, but
    a valid '-- ' one.

    See for example the many posts from 'Boris' (<nonegiven@att.net>) in alt.comp.os.windows-10.

    [...]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to Adam H. Kerman on Sat May 8 15:01:56 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

    VanguardLH <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

    Oh, I also have a filter on foul-mouthed posters. Several test on
    headers (Subject, From, Organization, Keywords, or X-headers) with a
    value containing foul words, like "fuck". Yep, you have one:

    X-US-Congress: Moronic Fucks. . . .

    Who the fuck cares what you filter with your fucking kill file? It's
    none of fucking Usenet's fucking business.

    Fuck. Fucking public plonking announcements are fucking immature.

    And you don't care that *I* filtered out Panix articles when Panix used
    to spammify posts submitted to them, too. You don't care about any of
    my filters. You only care about YOUR filters. DUH!

    I explained to Eli why I didn't see his article thinking it originally
    was due to him using Panix, but after modifying that filter (to no
    longer ignore-flag those articles) then noticed he also has foul
    language in his headers.

    You really want to lower your reputation in Usenet to that of a
    foul-mouthed inane peurile? How old are you (mentally, not physically)?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Adam H. Kerman@21:1/5 to VanguardLH on Sat May 8 21:08:13 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    VanguardLH <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
    VanguardLH <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

    Oh, I also have a filter on foul-mouthed posters. Several test on >>>headers (Subject, From, Organization, Keywords, or X-headers) with a >>>value containing foul words, like "fuck". Yep, you have one:

    X-US-Congress: Moronic Fucks. . . .

    Who the fuck cares what you filter with your fucking kill file? It's
    none of fucking Usenet's fucking business.

    Fuck. Fucking public plonking announcements are fucking immature.

    And you don't care that *I* filtered out Panix articles when Panix used
    to spammify posts submitted to them, too. You don't care about any of
    my filters. You only care about YOUR filters. DUH!

    As it's relevant to the individual user only, public plonking
    announcements really don't belong on Usenet, unless one is deliberately
    being a drama queen in which case carry on.

    What was Panix doing, appending an advertisment in a sigfile? I vaguely
    recall that.

    I explained to Eli why I didn't see his article thinking it originally
    was due to him using Panix, but after modifying that filter (to no
    longer ignore-flag those articles) then noticed he also has foul
    language in his headers.

    You really want to lower your reputation in Usenet to that of a
    foul-mouthed inane peurile? How old are you (mentally, not physically)?

    My reputation for unintentional subtlety still stands.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to Frank Slootweg on Sat May 8 15:40:30 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

    VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
    [...]

    I've see Avast users, and other anti-virus program users, that spamify
    their Usenet posts (and e-mails). Avast does the same as did/does
    Panix: use an invalid sigdash line followed by 1, or more, lines of spam
    announcing the users employs Avast.

    FYI, AFAICT Avast does no longer generate an invalid sigdash line, but
    a valid '-- ' one.

    See for example the many posts from 'Boris' (<nonegiven@att.net>) in alt.comp.os.windows-10.

    [...]

    Boris (there's more than one there) does *NOT* add a signature. That's
    the username I searched there, because that's the nym you mentioned.
    Then I searched that newsgroup on "<nonegiven@att.net>", the e-mail
    address (in the comment field) you mentioned. That user's nym is Bill,
    not Boris.

    Bill does have a proper sigdash line in his posts assuming Avast added
    the sigblock instead of Bill specifying it as his sig in his client (Thunderbird) and disabling the spam sigblock in Avast AV's settings.
    With the plethora of Avast-related headers, it appears Avast finally got
    around to using a valid sigdash line -- after how many years of ignoring
    their impoliteness?

    Of course, it is still a spam sig, but now clients that hide sigblocks
    will work to eliminate Avast's spam postfix. It is still a stupid
    statement: oh yes, we all must surely believe a post is clean just
    because it says so.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DZbSlkFoSU

    The best solution would be for Bill to configure Avast AV to *not*
    postfix its spam sigblock. It makes the poster look ignorant while
    enlisting the poster as a voluntary spamming affiliate.

    Those that I plonked were those that refused to stop spamming in Usenet.
    Even you probably have filters against spammers. When they refused to reconfigure Avast (and I often gave instructions), they overly chose to continue spamming, so I hid their posts. They were educated, they
    refused, were too lazy, or ignorant in thinking the sigblock magically
    made their posts safe, they continued to spam, so those spammers also
    got filtered. They choose to spam.

    My filters don't plonk those that had invalid sigblocks that spammed
    Avast. They were spamming, they were told how to stop it, they didn't,
    they continued to spam, so it was the spamming poster that got plonked,
    not based on the content of their article. There are posters that also
    pretend to help with minimal or irrelevant responses just so they can
    spam in their signatures. Their intent is to spam, not to help.
    Whatever the cause, I filter out spammers.

    That Avast still defaults to opt-out for their sigblock still makes them
    rude regarding this behavior. They've been puking out their spam tag in content NOT owned by them since Dec 2015, or earlier. Nope, it isn't
    about the cost of using freeware. Their payware is also misbehaved.

    Thanks for the heads up that perhaps Avast stopped using an invalid
    sigdash line (although they still spammify, by default). I never
    filtered out posts based on signatures (extremely rare they are on-topic
    to a discussion), especially since *valid* sigblocks are hidden, by
    default, in my client. It's those that [continue to knowingly] spam
    that get hidden from my view of Usenet.

    Note: If we continue this sigblock spam subthread, I'm tempted to change
    the Subject again. First was to address Eli's duplication of my
    Keywords header. Now we're into invalid sigblock spam. Probably won't continue this subthread since I'm not interested in others' opinion of
    what constitutes spam or not. My filters, my definition of spam, my intolerance of spammers, my choice of how I view Usenet.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to Adam H. Kerman on Sat May 8 16:37:42 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

    What was Panix doing, appending an advertisment in a sigfile? I vaguely recall that.

    If it had been enclosed in a proper sigblock (i.e., had a valid sigdash
    line), I wouldn't have cared since my client is configured to hide sigs.
    They are extremely rare to be on-topic to a thread. Only if an invalid
    sigdash line were used, like "---\n", would I see the spam sigblock
    because it was within the message, not in a proper sigblock.

    Not all their submissions got spammified with their invalid sigblock.
    Been a long time since I first started seeing their spammy invalid
    sigblock, but then I've been filtering them out for a long time, too.
    I'm not sure now, but recall they might've had free trial accounts, and
    those were the submissions that got spammified. I don't keep, as
    comments, evidence of posts (headers+message+sig) in the comments of my filters. My comment for the Panix filter is:

    # Ignore posts that get spamified by Usenet providers (appended spam is
    not in a proper signature), ...

    That block of filters were about spammification by Usenet providers, and invalid sigblocks was only one scheme. Some didn't even bother to
    pretend their spam was in a sigblock, and just appended it to the
    article submitted to them (they modified the message).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=CF?=@21:1/5 to Adam H. Kerman on Sat May 8 22:52:53 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.dev.null

    Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

    VanguardLH <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

    [...]

    You really want to lower your reputation in Usenet to that of a >foul-mouthed inane peurile? How old are you (mentally, not physically)?

    My reputation for unintentional subtlety still stands.

    If nothing else, an old-fashioned netiquette row in
    these end times of Usenet is quaintly entertaining.

    [xpost and fup]

    --
    fold, spindle, mutilate.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Miguel Tomar Nogueira@21:1/5 to VanguardLH on Sun May 9 05:58:29 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> writes:

    The best solution would be for Bill to configure Avast AV to *not*
    postfix its spam sigblock. It makes the poster look ignorant while
    enlisting the poster as a voluntary spamming affiliate.

    ...

    My filters don't plonk those that had invalid sigblocks that spammed
    Avast. They were spamming, they were told how to stop it, they didn't,
    they continued to spam

    I remember seeing suggestions that it's not the posters but their VPN
    is using Avast and automatically adding those signatures to all
    articles/email messages.

    Just did some quick googling and it seems that there definitely is
    some product called "Avast SecureLine VPN." I'm not going to bother to
    check it but it seems that there is a free trial, so anyone can download
    it, post to Usenet and see if any unwanted signatures will appear. I
    suspect it will happen only in case of unsecured connection.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Frank Slootweg@21:1/5 to VanguardLH on Sun May 9 17:24:29 2021
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:

    [...]

    Boris (there's more than one there) does *NOT* add a signature. That's
    the username I searched there, because that's the nym you mentioned.
    Then I searched that newsgroup on "<nonegiven@att.net>", the e-mail
    address (in the comment field) you mentioned. That user's nym is Bill,
    not Boris.

    Yup. Sorry about that. I indeed meant 'Bill <nonegiven@att.net>'.
    Probably saw too many Boris postings.

    [...]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)