I understand that banning yahoo.com and hotmail.com is a pain in the butt. If their abuse department would even -acknowledge- the fact that they have spammers I would lift the ban. But mail to abuse gives you the auto-gen response and they never follow up. I have even tried a phone call and got a very polite support tech who told me I have to work with the abuse department. FAQs: Q: Can't you just let me through? A: Mailman does not have a way to identify just 'you'. I can pattern match on any SMTP header, but those can be easily forged. Q: Can't you do a POP-before-SMTP hack thing? A: I could, but I don't really want to maintain a list of accounts on my server for all the TCLUG users who want to post. A: The problem where facing is not really a relaying problem, which the POP-before-SMTP thing addresses. We are facing a problem where spammers sign up for accounts en-mass and then attempt to sign those accounts up to the mailing list, so they can spam the list. All the lists we have only allow posting to the list if you are a subscriber. Q: I have -only- yahoo mail or hotmail, I can't do email anywhere else. A: I personally find that hard to believe. Neither of these services provide physical connectivity to the 'net, so you should be able to post to the list from your isp account. If your isp does not provide email/pop services, then I guess your are screwed :-) -But- what type of isp does not provide email services? Q: This sucks. (ok, not really a question) A: Yes it does. Look at it from my stand point. I deal with over 100,000 spam messages a day. As an isp we are on the front-lines of the spam war. All I ask is that you post from your isp account. Q: You suck for doing this to me. A: While it may look like I am doing this just to -you-, I am really doing it to protect the other subscribers on the list. Spam makes the list look bad. We all get enough spam already, I don't want to add to it. Spam make -me- look bad, like I cannot secure the mailing list server. But most of all, this is a democracy, and the majority rules. The majority want spam free mailing list. I am attempting to provide this. As always, I am open to comments and complaints via personal email. -- Bob Tanner <tanner at real-time.com> | Phone : (952)943-8700 http://www.mn-linux.org | Fax : (952)943-8500 Key fingerprint = 6C E9 51 4F D5 3E 4C 66 62 A9 10 E5 35 85 39 D9