[ale] Help!! Ale is being abused

[Robert Tweedy]

I feel like disabling the Mailman "-request" and "-subscribe" addresses 
would have unintended side effects, but it's technically a possibility; 
does anyone more familiar with GNU Mailman know if this is:

1. A bad idea/will severely break core Mailman functions (alternatively, 
how many people will start sending in complaints that their emails to 
"ale-request at ale.org" stopped working)?
2. An option that's available through Mailman's configuration files? Or 
would I need to modify the Postfix aliases to achieve this?

-Robert

On 7/12/22 20:40, Derek Atkins wrote:
> Another option is to turn off handling of email-based subscription
> requests and require going through the web interface?
>
> -derek
>
> On Tue, July 12, 2022 8:17 pm, Robert Tweedy via Ale wrote:
>> I've gotten a basic Captcha configured now on Mailman's main sign-up
>> pages (which is likely where the issue's coming from), so this will
>> hopefully lessen the problem. I'm definitely open to any suggestions for
>> improvement as well as donations of time to implement a better
>> spam-filtering mechanism to prevent the server from responding to every
>> incoming message it receives (ie. Mailman either needs to be smarter
>> about what messages it replies to & what messages it just
>> ignores/discards without a reply, or we need our spam filter to also
>> work internally & keep Mailman from sending out spam on its own when
>> someone/something abuses forms on the site that could generate an email).
>>
>> On 7/12/22 18:01, Jim Kinney via Ale wrote:
>>> Started getting these notices/complaints today and each one is a $5
>>> charge from my hosting provider. We're up to $35 so far today.
>>>
>>> I'm on work out of state and didn't travel with any personal gear and
>>> Robert is also slammed. Can someone gently talk with the recipient and
>>> ask if they can simply delete/block instead of complain.
>>>
>>> We are open to ideas. That email is already blocked.
>>>
>>>
>>> <snip>
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>>
>
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