Massachusetts Open Document Format (ODF) hearings audiocast, pictures and blogged

Dan Bricklin attended the hearings in Massachusetts on the Open  
Document Format and posted his notes, audio recordings and pictures  
here:

http://danbricklin.com/log/2005_09_07.htm#senateodf

Massachusetts Open Document Format (ODF) hearings audiocast, pictures and blogged

Dan Bricklin attended the hearings in Massachusetts on the Open  
Document Format and posted his notes, audio recordings and pictures  
here:

http://danbricklin.com/log/2005_09_07.htm#senateodf

Ted Roche
Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
http://www.tedroche.com

[OT] Attack of the stupid-bots?

Anybody else noticed a sudden flurry of bogus email
messages from random IP addrs this week.  Malformed
headers, no message bodies, no Subject: line,
no payload.  I must have 40 or 50 by now.  Weird...

Re: [OT] Attack of the stupid-bots?

> Anybody else noticed a sudden flurry of bogus email
> messages from random IP addrs this week.  Malformed
> headers, no message bodies, no Subject: line,
> no payload.  I must have 40 or 50 by now.  Weird...

Yeah, I've been getting them too... SpamAssassin isn't being fooled though.
-N

bogus emails...............

In the last week (approx), I have received baout 40 messages from "(No From)" about "(No Subject)". The
originating IP is 68.162.28.78

I use Sylpheed and have the preview pane opened, so I never actually "open" the email. I think someone is just
scouting for actual addresses, or perhaps something more malicious down the line. 

Any ideas, please post.

RE: bogus emails...............

Re: bogus emails...............

fgibbs wrote:

>In the last week (approx), I have received baout 40 messages from "(No From)" about "(No Subject)". The
originating IP is 68.162.28.78
>  
>
$ sudo echo "68.162.28.78    550    $YOUR_MESSAGE_TO_SPAMMER" >>
/etc/mail/access
$ sudo makemap hash /etc/mail/access.db < /etc/mail/access
$ sudo /etc/init.d/sendmail restart

(modify to fit your mail server...)

Here's what the spammer's probably doing... by sending the smallest
possible email, he's keeping his bandwidth low.  If the email is
accepted by the SMTP server, he knows that he can send to that address
through that email server.

It's definitely a probe.  He's looking for email addresses that are
rejected right away.  He's cleaning his mailing list opf bouncing/bogus
emails.

Modifying your access file as above, you will reject the email on the
connect string.  Your email will effectively be removed from the
spammer's list as one that bounces.   I usually add a message something
like "Spammer.  Go Away" as my message.  If you don't want to tip your
hand, just put "Unauthorized."

I'm sure others here can give other suggestions.

Brian

Re: bogus emails...............

On Wednesday 02 November 2005 3:01 pm, fgibbs wrote:
> In the last week (approx), I have received baout 40 messages from "(No
> From)" about "(No Subject)". The originating IP is 68.162.28.78
>
> I use Sylpheed and have the preview pane opened, so I never actually
> "open" the email. I think someone is just scouting for actual addresses,
> or perhaps something more malicious down the line.
That's a Verizon address. 
Note that previewing your email has the same affect as opening it. 
Fortunately Sylpheed does not suffer from the same problems as does 
Outlook. In Sylpheed, even if you have the dillo plugin, it does not go out 
to external sites unless you click on reload. 
--

-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf@...>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

Re: bogus emails...............

On 11/2/05, Brian Chabot <brian@...> wrote:
> $ sudo echo "68.162.28.78    550    $YOUR_MESSAGE_TO_SPAMMER" >>
> /etc/mail/access
> $ sudo makemap hash /etc/mail/access.db < /etc/mail/access
> $ sudo /etc/init.d/sendmail restart

  FYI, you don't need to restart Sendmail after updating a database
file.  You only need to do that if you modify the config file or it's
includes.

-- Ben

OpenGuides

Recently, in the b0st0n LiveJournal community [1], a request was made
for a wiki to annotate the common questions asked by the community. In
general, I find wikis as content management systems to be overrated,
especially without a very dedicated user base of contributors. They are
not the pancea that so many people seem to think they should be. 

However, I think that for structred storage of user-editable metadata,
a wiki solution can sometimes be useful in a way that others can't. For
this reason, I had previously set up the Open Guide to Boston [2], using
the OpenGuides [3]  software. 

OpenGuides is a project dedicated to free and open collaboration on data
which is similar to CitySearch or other directory type applications. All
data is stored in a local database, but also exported in RDF/XML,
offering processing oppourtunities for other extran applications which
may wish to take advantage of the data. This "open source" directory is
similar in intention to Wikipedia, with its free documentation license
designed to allow other people to use the information as they see fit,
including full reproduction if that is neccesary for some use.

Of special note over more general packages is the structured metadata
stored with each object. Information like address and zip code are
stored with each node, and this information can be edited by the user..

My additions to the OpenGuides codebase for the purpose of serving
Boston specifically are:

 * Addition of geocoding addresses to Lat/Long automatically, using 
   Geocoder [4], a free US address mapping service.
 * Addition of Google Maps views of several aspects of the data,
   including:
     * Map display on node pages, such as the Full Moon page [5]
     * Maps of all Nodes in a given category [6]
     * Maps of all nodes in the guide, in a Google Local like format. [7]
 * Adding links to the header (most guides don't do this)

I think this is an example of what can be done with relatively limited
information -- simply put in a street address and a town, and the map is
generated for you, using public domain data and free for non-commercial
use services.

I would love to see anyone who knows about things going on or places in
Boston to add them to the wiki, or other sources of information that
locals or visitors to the town or surrounding towns might find
interesting or useful. I think an open source, open data alternative to
Citysearch would be a cool thing to have, and I'd love to have some help
in making it.

[1] http://www.livejournal.com/community/b0st0n/
[2] http://boston.openguides.org/
[3] http://openguides.org/
[4] http://geocoder.us/
[5] http://boston.openguides.org/?Full_Moon
[6]
http://boston.openguides.org/?action=index;index_type=category;index_value=Restaurants
[7] http://boston.openguides.org/?action=index;format=map

--

-- 
Christopher SChmidt