If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions" spam, please let me know.
Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS after something like three decades
--
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#befor

On Monday, October 23, 2023 at 11:32:53 AM UTC+1, Henry Crun wrote:
> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions" spam, please let me know.
> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS after something like three decades
> --
> No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
> Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#befor

Yes it's a nuisance. Other forums are available. e.g. https://forum.vmssoftware.com/index.php

On Monday, October 23, 2023 at 11:39:20 AM UTC+1, Ian Miller wrote:
> On Monday, October 23, 2023 at 11:32:53 AM UTC+1, Henry Crun wrote:
> > If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions" spam, please let me know.
> > Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS after something like three decades
> > --
> > No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
> > Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#befor
> Yes it's a nuisance. Other forums are available. e.g. https://forum.vmssoftware.com/index.php
Having only recently come back to a public newsgroup after 10 or 15 years, it's frustrating that there doesn't appear to be any filters or blocking mechanism. This c**p wrecks any useful conversation. :-(

On 10/23/2023 6:32 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions"
> spam, please let me know.
> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS
> after something like three decades

How to you read c.o.v/I-V?

I see tons of spam if I read Google Groups via browser.

But if I read news.eternal-september.org via a newsreader,
then very little spam.

Arne

On 2023-10-23 12:32, Henry Crun wrote:
> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions"
> spam, please let me know.
> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS
> after something like three decades

Depending on your news reader... There used to be a kill filter
functionality in them, so you could get rid of specific users or topics.

That's where the "plonk" comes into the picture as well, if you are
familiar with the term.

Johnny

On 2023-10-23, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> On 10/23/2023 6:32 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions"
>> spam, please let me know.
>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS
>> after something like three decades
>
> How to you read c.o.v/I-V?
>
> I see tons of spam if I read Google Groups via browser.
>
> But if I read news.eternal-september.org via a newsreader,
> then very little spam.
>

Eternal September is the overall best approach at the moment, but
it does sometimes remove genuine posts as spam. It has done that
to some of Jake's posts, for example.

Now, the bigger question is what is the point of this spam and
why is comp.os.vms being hit ? If you look at comp.lang.ada using
Google Groups, there's nothing in there, but there's lots of
different spam (than what's appearing here) in comp.lang.c.

What is the actual motivation for the person posting this ?
After all, who actually believes the contents of the spam ?

IOW, get-rich-quick schemes _may_ have some takers, but what's the
point of the current spam contents ?

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

Den 2023-10-23 kl. 13:23, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
> On 10/23/2023 6:32 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions"
>> spam, please let me know.
>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS
>> after something like three decades
>
> How to you read c.o.v/I-V?
>
> I see tons of spam if I read Google Groups via browser.
>
> But if I read news.eternal-september.org via a newsreader,
> then very little spam.
>
> Arne
>
>

Agree. I use Eternal September and I saw the complaints on the
spam posts way earliern then the actual spam...

On Mon, 2023-10-23 at 07:23 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> How to you read c.o.v/I-V?
>
> I see tons of spam if I read Google Groups via browser.

It's f**king Google who's letting the spam through. They seem content
to let anyone post any old shite to the newsgroups through their
servers. People have reached out to Google but noone's stepped up. At
this point I think they should just shut down their googlegroups and
let the grown-ups kick the spammers out OR resume their job of weeding
out this shite.

The cynic/conspiracy theorist in me reckons this is Google's plot to
destroy newsgroups.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

On 23/10/2023 15:07, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2023-10-23 12:32, Henry Crun wrote:
>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions" spam, please let me know.
>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS after something like three decades
>
> Depending on your news reader... There used to be a kill filter functionality in them, so you could get rid of specific
> users or topics.
>
> That's where the "plonk" comes into the picture as well, if you are familiar with the term.
>
>   Johnny
>
I already have five or six plonks for various 'From' and/or 'Subject': astrologer, Love, love, Magic etc. etc
Some of the spam arrives with non-ASCI fields, or purposely mis-spelled.
Quite a few vanish if I run "Delete expired posts" , but lately there have been some very active threads on comp.os.vms
and having to sort manually through several dozen posts gets boring and I would like to make it automatic.
So no help, then... Sorry I asked.

Mike
--
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#befor

On 2023-10-23, Henry Crun <mike@rechtman.com> wrote:
> So no help, then... Sorry I asked.
>

What is stopping you from using a newsreader and Eternel September ?

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 2023-10-23, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
> On 2023-10-23, Henry Crun <mike@rechtman.com> wrote:
>> So no help, then... Sorry I asked.
>>
>
> What is stopping you from using a newsreader and Eternel September ?
>

Just checked your headers and you are using Thunderbird.

What is stopping you from switching to Eternal September ?

See:

https://www.eternal-september.org/

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 23/10/2023 16:00, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-10-23, Henry Crun <mike@rechtman.com> wrote:
>> So no help, then... Sorry I asked.
>>
>
> What is stopping you from using a newsreader and Eternel September ?
>
> Simon.
>
I guess that's my next step

Thanks
--
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#befor

On 23/10/2023 13:14, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-10-23, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 10/23/2023 6:32 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
>>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions"
>>> spam, please let me know.
>>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS
>>> after something like three decades
>>
>> How to you read c.o.v/I-V?
>>
>> I see tons of spam if I read Google Groups via browser.
>>
>> But if I read news.eternal-september.org via a newsreader,
>> then very little spam.
>>
>
> Eternal September is the overall best approach at the moment, but
> it does sometimes remove genuine posts as spam. It has done that
> to some of Jake's posts, for example.
>
> Now, the bigger question is what is the point of this spam and
> why is comp.os.vms being hit ? If you look at comp.lang.ada using
> Google Groups, there's nothing in there, but there's lots of
> different spam (than what's appearing here) in comp.lang.c.
>
> What is the actual motivation for the person posting this ?
> After all, who actually believes the contents of the spam ?
>
> IOW, get-rich-quick schemes _may_ have some takers, but what's the
> point of the current spam contents ?
>
> Simon.
>

comp.lang.ada is fairly low volume, but there are regular posts.

Only problem I have with Eternal September is that the current very high
level seems to confuse Thunderbird, so I see valid headers, but have to
close and reopen a few times to get the messages

--
Chris

Just a word of warning about Thunderbird. About a year ago they suddenly removed the ability to read mbox-type messages coming from the system. Having to run a Dovecot system just to pass on a few logs would have been a right royal pain. I moved over to Evolution, but that doesn't appear to support newsgroups.

On 10/23/2023 9:19 AM, Chris Townley wrote:

> Only problem I have with Eternal September is that the current very
> high level seems to confuse Thunderbird, so I see valid headers, but
> have to close and reopen a few times to get the messages

Yeah, I've been seeing that for a couple of months; it's a mostly-recent problem,
I think.

--
-- Rob

On 2023-10-23 14:28, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
> On Mon, 2023-10-23 at 07:23 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> How to you read c.o.v/I-V?
>>
>> I see tons of spam if I read Google Groups via browser.
>
> It's f**king Google who's letting the spam through. They seem content
> to let anyone post any old shite to the newsgroups through their
> servers. People have reached out to Google but noone's stepped up. At
> this point I think they should just shut down their googlegroups and
> let the grown-ups kick the spammers out OR resume their job of weeding
> out this shite.
>
> The cynic/conspiracy theorist in me reckons this is Google's plot to
> destroy newsgroups.

I'm not sure if you understand how news works... There is no centralized
control. Google can't stop anything. They can at most prevent users
reading this through their servers from seeing it, but they cannot do
anything about users getting their newsfeed from somewhere else.

Johnny

On 2023-10-23 14:57, Henry Crun wrote:
> On 23/10/2023 15:07, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> On 2023-10-23 12:32, Henry Crun wrote:
>>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love
>>> potions" spam, please let me know.
>>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with
>>> VMS after something like three decades
>>
>> Depending on your news reader... There used to be a kill filter
>> functionality in them, so you could get rid of specific users or topics.
>>
>> That's where the "plonk" comes into the picture as well, if you are
>> familiar with the term.
>>
>>    Johnny
>>
> I already have five or six plonks for various 'From' and/or 'Subject':
> astrologer, Love, love, Magic etc. etc
> Some of the spam arrives with non-ASCI fields, or purposely mis-spelled.
> Quite a few vanish if I run "Delete expired posts" , but lately there
> have been some very active threads on comp.os.vms and having to sort
> manually through several dozen posts gets boring and I would like to
> make it automatic.

Yeah. There have been an explosion in the last week or two.
But yeah, nothing auomatic about kill filters, no.

But again - this depends on what news reader you use, as well as where
you are getting your feed from.

> So no help, then... Sorry I asked.

No reason to excuse yourself. I'm bothered by these posts as well. I was
trying to help, based on the minimal information you gave.

Others have suggested eternal september, which is a solution that tries
to deal with this by having your newsfeed filter for you.

Manual kill filters was my initial suggestion. As you use Thunderbird, I
don't think there is anything easy to suggest. The automatic spam
handling in Thunderbird do not seem to be able to be used for news. :-(

Johnny

On 10/23/2023 6:55 AM, Martin Rushton wrote:
> On Monday, October 23, 2023 at 11:39:20 AM UTC+1, Ian Miller wrote:
>> On Monday, October 23, 2023 at 11:32:53 AM UTC+1, Henry Crun wrote:
>>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions" spam, please let me know.
>>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS after something like three decades
>>> --
>>> No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
>>> Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#befor
>> Yes it's a nuisance. Other forums are available. e.g. https://forum.vmssoftware.com/index.php
> Having only recently come back to a public newsgroup after 10 or 15 years, it's frustrating that there doesn't appear to be any filters or blocking mechanism. This c**p wrecks any useful conversation. :-(
>

Yes, it is regrettable.

But how many such posts are you seeing? I'm using Eternal September, and it is
an occasional thing. I just keep hitting the NEXT button until past the posts.
I just refuse to let it bother me. Sometimes the filter in your head is the
most effective.

DON'T LET THE BASTARDS WIN !!!!

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

On 10/23/2023 7:23 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 10/23/2023 6:32 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love
>> potions" spam, please let me know.
>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with
>> VMS after something like three decades
>
> How to you read c.o.v/I-V?
>
> I see tons of spam if I read Google Groups via browser.
>
> But if I read news.eternal-september.org via a newsreader,
> then very little spam.
>

All this crap is coming from google groups.

bill

On 10/23/2023 8:14 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-10-23, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 10/23/2023 6:32 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
>>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions"
>>> spam, please let me know.
>>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS
>>> after something like three decades
>>
>> How to you read c.o.v/I-V?
>>
>> I see tons of spam if I read Google Groups via browser.
>>
>> But if I read news.eternal-september.org via a newsreader,
>> then very little spam.
>>
>
> Eternal September is the overall best approach at the moment, but
> it does sometimes remove genuine posts as spam. It has done that
> to some of Jake's posts, for example.
>
> Now, the bigger question is what is the point of this spam and

What is the point of any spam?

> why is comp.os.vms being hit ? If you look at comp.lang.ada using
> Google Groups, there's nothing in there, but there's lots of
> different spam (than what's appearing here) in comp.lang.c.

They seem to be moving from one group to another. Mine started in
comp.lang.cobol but once the server figured it out and started killing
most of them before they went anywhere they moved. Now in c.o.v but
I expect not for long.

The newest version of Thunderbird doesn't appear to have filtering
capabilities any more (or at least not in an easily discovered
method) so I may have to go back to Knews for reading USENET.

>
> What is the actual motivation for the person posting this ?
> After all, who actually believes the contents of the spam ?

What's the motivation of any asshole.

>
> IOW, get-rich-quick schemes _may_ have some takers, but what's the
> point of the current spam contents ?

Apparently to test how incompetent most news server admins are today.

If all the other servers would just drop google groups this crap would
just go away.

bill

On 10/23/2023 8:28 AM, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
> On Mon, 2023-10-23 at 07:23 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> How to you read c.o.v/I-V?
>>
>> I see tons of spam if I read Google Groups via browser.
>
> It's f**king Google who's letting the spam through. They seem content
> to let anyone post any old shite to the newsgroups through their
> servers. People have reached out to Google but noone's stepped up. At
> this point I think they should just shut down their googlegroups and
> let the grown-ups kick the spammers out OR resume their job of weeding
> out this shite.
>
> The cynic/conspiracy theorist in me reckons this is Google's plot to
> destroy newsgroups.

How do we convince the admins at all the other USENET servers
to just stop accepting from or forwarding to google groups?
Problem solved.

bill

On 10/23/2023 9:48 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2023-10-23 14:28, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
>> On Mon, 2023-10-23 at 07:23 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> How to you read c.o.v/I-V?
>>>
>>> I see tons of spam if I read Google Groups via browser.
>>
>> It's f**king Google who's letting the spam through. They seem content
>> to let anyone post any old shite to the newsgroups through their
>> servers. People have reached out to Google but noone's stepped up. At
>> this point I think they should just shut down their googlegroups and
>> let the grown-ups kick the spammers out OR resume their job of weeding
>> out this shite.
>>
>> The cynic/conspiracy theorist in me reckons this is Google's plot to
>> destroy newsgroups.
>
> I'm not sure if you understand how news works... There is no centralized
> control. Google can't stop anything. They can at most prevent users
> reading this through their servers from seeing it, but they cannot do
> anything about users getting their newsfeed from somewhere else.
>

They can when you look at the messages and see they originate on
google groups. And all with gmail accounts. A totally in house
problem.

bill

On 24/10/2023 00:05, bill wrote:
> On 10/23/2023 8:14 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2023-10-23, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>> On 10/23/2023 6:32 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
>>>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions"
>>>> spam, please let me know.
>>>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS
>>>> after something like three decades
>>>
8< snip 8<
> The newest version of Thunderbird doesn't appear to have filtering
> capabilities any more (or at least not in an easily discovered
> method) so I may have to go back to Knews for reading USENET.

You can open a message, right-click (or double tap if using a pad) on
the "From" in the header panel, select "Create Filter From..." from the
popup menu, uncheck "[ ]Manually Run" and hit [OK] button.

You get a "Message Filters" popup listing all the current filters, hit
the [Run Now] button at the bottom. Voila! Gone and also gone
automatically from thereon.

Bit tedious and a little whack-a-mole but seems to work. Compound
filters can be built if so inclined but the basic few clicks seem to
work well enough. I've only needed to (re)discover this mechanism over
the last week or two.

(Now I just have to [Delete] and "Confirm [OK]" the 'From is:
bill.gunshannon@gmail.com' filter from the "Message Filters" popup :-)

8< snip 8<
> bill

--
Anyone, who using social-media, forms an opinion regarding anything
other than the relative cuteness of this or that puppy-dog, needs
seriously to examine their critical thinking.

On 2023-10-23 12:14:05 +0000, Simon Clubley said:

> Eternal September is the overall best approach at the moment, but it
> does sometimes remove genuine posts as spam. It has done that to some
> of Jake's posts, for example.

Jake's disappeared yes, and Eternal September filtering is removing
other posts including at least one by John Reagan.

> IOW, get-rich-quick schemes _may_ have some takers, but what's the
> point of the current spam contents ?

It's could well be a botnet command and control channel, or a covert
communications channel for espionage; some sort of modern-day numbers
station. Who knows?

--
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

On Mon, 2023-10-23 at 06:36 -0700, Martin Rushton wrote:
> Just a word of warning about Thunderbird.  About a year ago they
> suddenly removed the ability to read mbox-type messages coming from
> the system.  Having to run a Dovecot system just to pass on a few
> logs would have been a right royal pain.  I moved over to Evolution,
> but that doesn't appear to support newsgroups.

Hmm, I must be dreaming because I'm using Evolution to read c.o.v right
now.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens