cpu speed problem

[fedora]

Hi listers

here is a laptop with

[root@myhost ~]# cat /etc/fedora-release
Fedora release 7 (Moonshine)
[root@myhost ~]#

worked well until 10 days ago. then, the laptop started its fan, and 
drove down its cpuspeed to about a quarter of the speed before. if i run 
the system-monitor, the cpu is busy always about 30 %, whereas before it 
was busy only about 6 %.
The fan from then on is never stopped and the CPU stays low in 
performance from then on. i have to do a power down (either pm-hibernate 
or halt/reboot) in order to make it come up with the "full" performance 
and stay there for a while. after that, the fan starts again and the cpu 
slows down.

after some googling i tried the following:

[root@myhost ~]# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
997500
[root@myhost ~]# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq
731500
[root@myhost ~]# echo "997500" 
> /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed
[root@myhost ~]# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq
997500
[root@myhost ~]#

i also changed the parameters of the cpuspeed program, so that now it 
comes up with:

  1413 ?        Ss     0:01 cpuspeed -d -p 90 45 -m 731500 -M 997500 -n

all to no avail.

i also checked to see, whether in the BIOS the intelCPUstepping is 
enabled, and it is enabled.

i understand, that the fan at a certain point in time starts turning. 
but i don't understand, why at the same time, the cpu slows down.

has anyone got an idea, where this immediate change stems from and how i 
could stop it?

thanks in advance for any reply

suomi

[Mikkel]

fedora wrote:
>  Hi listers
>  
>  here is a laptop with
>  
>  [root@myhost ~]# cat /etc/fedora-release
>  Fedora release 7 (Moonshine)
>  [root@myhost ~]#
>  
>  worked well until 10 days ago. then, the laptop started its fan, and
>  drove down its cpuspeed to about a quarter of the speed before. if i run
>  the system-monitor, the cpu is busy always about 30 %, whereas before it
>  was busy only about 6 %.
>  The fan from then on is never stopped and the CPU stays low in
>  performance from then on. i have to do a power down (either pm-hibernate
>  or halt/reboot) in order to make it come up with the "full" performance
>  and stay there for a while. after that, the fan starts again and the cpu
>  slows down.
>  
>  
>  i also changed the parameters of the cpuspeed program, so that now it
>  comes up with:
>  
>   1413 ?        Ss     0:01 cpuspeed -d -p 90 45 -m 731500 -M 997500 -n
>  
>  all to no avail.
>  
>  i also checked to see, whether in the BIOS the intelCPUstepping is
>  enabled, and it is enabled.
>  
>  i understand, that the fan at a certain point in time starts turning.
>  but i don't understand, why at the same time, the cpu slows down.
>  
>  has anyone got an idea, where this immediate change stems from and how i
>  could stop it?
>  
>  thanks in advance for any reply
>  
>  suomi
>   
I suspect you have a hardware problem - possibly dust clogging the
air path so you are not getting proper cooling.  You may be able to
fix the problem by blowing things out with canned air.

You can check this by looking at the CPU temperature - if it is
high, as I suspect, then the fan stays running and the CPU is slowed
down to try and control the CPU or motherboard temperature. You can
run "acpitool -t" if you have it installed, or take a look at the
values in /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/*/state.

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

[Karl Larsen]

fedora wrote:
>  Hi listers
>
>  here is a laptop with
>
>  [root@myhost ~]# cat /etc/fedora-release
>  Fedora release 7 (Moonshine)
>  [root@myhost ~]#
>
>  worked well until 10 days ago. then, the laptop started its fan, and 
>  drove down its cpuspeed to about a quarter of the speed before. if i 
>  run the system-monitor, the cpu is busy always about 30 %, whereas 
>  before it was busy only about 6 %.
>  The fan from then on is never stopped and the CPU stays low in 
>  performance from then on. i have to do a power down (either 
>  pm-hibernate or halt/reboot) in order to make it come up with the 
>  "full" performance and stay there for a while. after that, the fan 
>  starts again and the cpu slows down.
>
>  after some googling i tried the following:
>
>  [root@myhost ~]# cat 
>  /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
>  997500
>  [root@myhost ~]# cat 
>  /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq
>  731500
>  [root@myhost ~]# echo "997500" 
>  >/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed
>  [root@myhost ~]# cat 
>  /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq
>  997500
>  [root@myhost ~]#
>
>  i also changed the parameters of the cpuspeed program, so that now it 
>  comes up with:
>
>   1413 ?        Ss     0:01 cpuspeed -d -p 90 45 -m 731500 -M 997500 -n
>
>  all to no avail.
>
>  i also checked to see, whether in the BIOS the intelCPUstepping is 
>  enabled, and it is enabled.
>
>  i understand, that the fan at a certain point in time starts turning. 
>  but i don't understand, why at the same time, the cpu slows down.
>
>  has anyone got an idea, where this immediate change stems from and how 
>  i could stop it?
>
>  thanks in advance for any reply
>
>  suomi
>  
    I don't know your laptop but it sounds like you have a lot of dirt 
and lint inside the box making it hard for the fan to cool. I have used 
a vacume sweeper with a lot of suck and the crud really comes out.


-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.

[fedora]

thank you very much for your realistic and handy solutions.

suomi

Karl Larsen wrote:
>  fedora wrote:
> > Hi listers
> >
> > here is a laptop with
> >
> > [root@myhost ~]# cat /etc/fedora-release
> > Fedora release 7 (Moonshine)
> > [root@myhost ~]#
> >
> > worked well until 10 days ago. then, the laptop started its fan, and 
> > drove down its cpuspeed to about a quarter of the speed before. if i 
> > run the system-monitor, the cpu is busy always about 30 %, whereas 
> > before it was busy only about 6 %.
> > The fan from then on is never stopped and the CPU stays low in 
> > performance from then on. i have to do a power down (either 
> > pm-hibernate or halt/reboot) in order to make it come up with the 
> > "full" performance and stay there for a while. after that, the fan 
> > starts again and the cpu slows down.
> >
> > after some googling i tried the following:
> >
> > [root@myhost ~]# cat 
> > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
> > 997500
> > [root@myhost ~]# cat 
> > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq
> > 731500
> > [root@myhost ~]# echo "997500" 
> > >/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed
> > [root@myhost ~]# cat 
> > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq
> > 997500
> > [root@myhost ~]#
> >
> > i also changed the parameters of the cpuspeed program, so that now it 
> > comes up with:
> >
> >  1413 ?        Ss     0:01 cpuspeed -d -p 90 45 -m 731500 -M 997500 -n
> >
> > all to no avail.
> >
> > i also checked to see, whether in the BIOS the intelCPUstepping is 
> > enabled, and it is enabled.
> >
> > i understand, that the fan at a certain point in time starts turning. 
> > but i don't understand, why at the same time, the cpu slows down.
> >
> > has anyone got an idea, where this immediate change stems from and how 
> > i could stop it?
> >
> > thanks in advance for any reply
> >
> > suomi
> >
>     I don't know your laptop but it sounds like you have a lot of dirt 
>  and lint inside the box making it hard for the fan to cool. I have used 
>  a vacume sweeper with a lot of suck and the crud really comes out.
>  
>

[David Fletcher]

>    I don't know your laptop but it sounds like you have a lot of 
>  dirt and lint inside the box making it hard for the fan to cool. I 
>  have used a vacume sweeper with a lot of suck and the crud really comes out. 

I find that an air compressor with a blow gun works well for me. Much 
better than a vacuum cleaner for getting the muck out of all those 
hard to get at little places I reckon.

Dave

[Tim]

On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 16:46 +0100, David Fletcher wrote:
>  I find that an air compressor with a blow gun works well for me. Much
>
>  better than a vacuum cleaner for getting the muck out of all those 
>  hard to get at little places I reckon.  
Do that with caution.  Static can fry things, you want to be sure you
don't blast air across the electronics.

I'm told you don't want to whiz the fan around with air flow, either, it
can act as a dynamo and generate electricity into the circuitry
controlling it.  Hold it in place with something, so it can't spin.

Though I can't say I've been able to detect a problem when I
deliberately did that to a PSU fan until it made noises like a
fairground siren.  ;-)  I'll have to put a meter on the fan and see if
it really does generate any power while spinning.  I've yet to come
across a fan that will spin backwards if plugged in the other way, I
suspect there's a diode inside them.

-- 
(This box runs FC5, my others run FC4 & FC6, in case that's
 important to the thread.)

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

[Andy Green]

Somebody in the thread at some point said:

>  worked well until 10 days ago. then, the laptop started its fan, and
>  drove down its cpuspeed to about a quarter of the speed before. if i run
>  the system-monitor, the cpu is busy always about 30 %, whereas before it 
Did you look into which process was eating the extra CPU?

-Andy

[Mikkel]

Andy Green wrote:
>  Somebody in the thread at some point said:
>  
> > worked well until 10 days ago. then, the laptop started its fan, and
> > drove down its cpuspeed to about a quarter of the speed before. if i run
> > the system-monitor, the cpu is busy always about 30 %, whereas before it
>  
>  Did you look into which process was eating the extra CPU?
>  
>  -Andy
>   
Could the extra CPU usage be because the CPU is running so much
slower that it requires a higher CPU load to do the same tasks?

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

[fedora]

Hi Mikkel
that is exactly what i was thinking: you could not detect extra 
processes, consuming all the cpu power, exept at one time, when i made 
run top in order to see, which process swallowed the cpu power. but top 
showed me that itself (the top process) swallowed all cpu power up to 
100 % which seemed very strange to me.

but now for a start i have gathered the vacuuum cleaner and sucked the 
dust away. we will see whether that helps.

suomi

Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>  Andy Green wrote:
> > Somebody in the thread at some point said:
> >
> >> worked well until 10 days ago. then, the laptop started its fan, and
> >> drove down its cpuspeed to about a quarter of the speed before. if i run
> >> the system-monitor, the cpu is busy always about 30 %, whereas before it
> > Did you look into which process was eating the extra CPU?
> >
> > -Andy
> >
>  Could the extra CPU usage be because the CPU is running so much
>  slower that it requires a higher CPU load to do the same tasks?
>  
>  Mikkel
>

[Andy Green]

Somebody in the thread at some point said:
>  Andy Green wrote:
> > Somebody in the thread at some point said:
> >
> >> worked well until 10 days ago. then, the laptop started its fan, and
> >> drove down its cpuspeed to about a quarter of the speed before. if i run
> >> the system-monitor, the cpu is busy always about 30 %, whereas before it
> > Did you look into which process was eating the extra CPU?
> >
> > -Andy
> >
>  Could the extra CPU usage be because the CPU is running so much
>  slower that it requires a higher CPU load to do the same tasks? 
You're quite right, it can easily be that.

Is there anything down /proc/acpi any more on this machine then, in case
it no longer is able to start ACPI?

Anything interesting in

dmesg | grep ACPI

-Andy

[fedora]

Hi Andy
down /proc/acpi i see (between others)

[myuser@myhost ~]$ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM/temperature
temperature:             43 C
[myuser@myhost ~]$ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM/trip_points
critical (S5):           101 C
[myuser@myhost ~]$

[myuser@myhost ~]$ cat /proc/acpi/power_resource/PADA/state
state:                   on
system level:            S0
order:                   0
reference count:         0
[myuser@myhost ~]$


[myuser@myhost ~]$ ps xa |grep acpi
    49 ?        S<     0:00 [kacpid]
    50 ?        S<     0:00 [kacpi_notify]
  2551 ?        S      0:00 hald-addon-acpi: listening on acpi kernel 
interface /proc/acpi/event
  4209 pts/0    S+     0:00 grep acpi
[myuser@myhost ~]$


[myuser@myhost ~]$ dmesg |grep ACPI
ACPI: bus type pci registered
ACPI: Interpreter enabled
ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S3 S4 S5)
ACPI: Using PIC for interrupt routing
ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (0000:00)
PCI quirk: region 0800-087f claimed by ICH4 ACPI/GPIO/TCO
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.AGP_._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.PCIE._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 9 10 *11)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs *5 7)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 9 10 11) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 5 7 *10 11)
ACPI: Power Resource [PADA] (on)
pnp: PnP ACPI init
ACPI: bus type pnp registered
pnp: PnP ACPI: found 16 devices
ACPI: ACPI bus type pnp unregistered
PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] enabled at IRQ 10
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:0f.0[A] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 10 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 10
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:0f.1[A] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 10 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 10
apm: overridden by ACPI.
ACPI: CPU0 (power states: C1[C1] C2[C2])
ACPI: Thermal Zone [THM] (65 C)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[D] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 10 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 10
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:06.0[A] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 10 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 10
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:0f.2[A] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 10 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 10
parport_pc 00:0f: reported by Plug and Play ACPI
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] enabled at IRQ 5
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:03.0[A] -> Link [LNKB] -> GSI 5 (level, low) 
-> IRQ 5
ACPI: AC Adapter [AC] (on-line)
ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT0] (battery absent)
ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT1] (battery absent)
ACPI: ACPI Dock Station Driver
ACPI: Lid Switch [LID]
ACPI: Power Button (CM) [PBTN]
ACPI: Sleep Button (CM) [SBTN]
ACPI: Video Device [VID] (multi-head: yes  rom: no  post: no)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] enabled at IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> Link [LNKA] -> GSI 11 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:02:03.0 disabled
ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:00:1f.2 disabled
ac ACPI0003:00: freeze
processor ACPI0007:00: freeze
processor ACPI0007:00: resuming
ac ACPI0003:00: resuming
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[D] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 10 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 10
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> Link [LNKA] -> GSI 11 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:03.0[A] -> Link [LNKB] -> GSI 5 (level, low) 
-> IRQ 5
ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:02:03.0 disabled
ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:00:1f.2 disabled
ac ACPI0003:00: freeze
processor ACPI0007:00: freeze
processor ACPI0007:00: resuming
ac ACPI0003:00: resuming
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[D] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 10 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 10
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> Link [LNKA] -> GSI 11 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:03.0[A] -> Link [LNKB] -> GSI 5 (level, low) 
-> IRQ 5
ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:02:03.0 disabled
ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:00:1f.2 disabled
ac ACPI0003:00: freeze
processor ACPI0007:00: freeze
processor ACPI0007:00: resuming
ac ACPI0003:00: resuming
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[D] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 10 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 10
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> Link [LNKA] -> GSI 11 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:03.0[A] -> Link [LNKB] -> GSI 5 (level, low) 
-> IRQ 5
[myuser@myhost ~]$



i assime  the freeze/resume sequences are at the initiation of a suspend 
and a resume sequence respectively


see now actually the temparature has gone up farer:
[myuser@myhost ~]$ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM/temperature
temperature:             58 C
[myuser@myhost ~]$



many thanks for your ideas and help

suomi



Andy Green wrote:
>  Somebody in the thread at some point said:
> > Andy Green wrote:
> >> Somebody in the thread at some point said:
> >>
> >>> worked well until 10 days ago. then, the laptop started its fan, and
> >>> drove down its cpuspeed to about a quarter of the speed before. if i run
> >>> the system-monitor, the cpu is busy always about 30 %, whereas before it
> >> Did you look into which process was eating the extra CPU?
> >>
> >> -Andy
> >>
> > Could the extra CPU usage be because the CPU is running so much
> > slower that it requires a higher CPU load to do the same tasks?
>  
>  You're quite right, it can easily be that.
>  
>  Is there anything down /proc/acpi any more on this machine then, in case
>  it no longer is able to start ACPI?
>  
>  Anything interesting in
>  
>  dmesg | grep ACPI
>  
>  -Andy
>

[Howard Howell]

On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 16:12 +0200, fedora wrote:
>  Hi listers
>  
>  here is a laptop with
>  
>  [root@myhost ~]# cat /etc/fedora-release
>  Fedora release 7 (Moonshine)
>  [root@myhost ~]#
>  
>  worked well until 10 days ago. then, the laptop started its fan, and 
>  drove down its cpuspeed to about a quarter of the speed before. if i run 
>  the system-monitor, the cpu is busy always about 30 %, whereas before it 
>  was busy only about 6 %.
>  The fan from then on is never stopped and the CPU stays low in 
>  performance from then on. i have to do a power down (either pm-hibernate 
>  or halt/reboot) in order to make it come up with the "full" performance 
>  and stay there for a while. after that, the fan starts again and the cpu 
>  slows down.
>  
>  after some googling i tried the following:
>  
>  [root@myhost ~]# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
>  997500
>  [root@myhost ~]# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq
>  731500
>  [root@myhost ~]# echo "997500" 
>   >/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed
>  [root@myhost ~]# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq
>  997500
>  [root@myhost ~]#
>  
>  i also changed the parameters of the cpuspeed program, so that now it 
>  comes up with:
>  
>    1413 ?        Ss     0:01 cpuspeed -d -p 90 45 -m 731500 -M 997500 -n
>  
>  all to no avail.
>  
>  i also checked to see, whether in the BIOS the intelCPUstepping is 
>  enabled, and it is enabled.
>  
>  i understand, that the fan at a certain point in time starts turning. 
>  but i don't understand, why at the same time, the cpu slows down.
>  
>  has anyone got an idea, where this immediate change stems from and how i 
>  could stop it?
>  
>  thanks in advance for any reply
>  
>  suomi
>   
Could be humidity or the cooling ports could be blocked.  Check the rear
of the case and make sure that any openings are clear.  Also do not put
your laptop on any kind of soft surface.  That will block some of the
cooling that takes place through convection through the bottom plate.
No rug, or runner or any cloth should be under the laptop.  You might
also try getting one of those dehumidifier kits from a local market, and
put that and the laptop in a plastic bag over night.  Sometimes humidity
will build up inside the case.  If you do not have a local store that
has the dehumidifier, very carefully put some non purfumed talcum powder
(like you use on a baby) in a cup and put that and the computer in a
plastic bag over night (the computer must be turned off while in the
bag, just to be clear).

If the ports are clear, the bottom is not on any soft material and you
cannot detect any humidity, then something is probably dying inside the
laptop.  

	Oh, one other thing.  If you use the laptop plugged in all the time,
the charger are not designed to do that.  Eventually the batteries will
overcharge and possibly short.  Check your laptop at the manufacturers
list also to ensure you do not have a recalled battery pack.  There have
been some problems with some batteries.

Regards,
Les H

Regards,
Les H

[Aaron Konstam]

On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 17:44 -0700, Les wrote:
>  
>          Oh, one other thing.  If you use the laptop plugged in all the
>  time,
>  the charger are not designed to do that.  Eventually the batteries
>  will
>  overcharge and possibly short.  Check your laptop at the manufacturers
>  list also to ensure you do not have a recalled battery pack.  There
>  have
>  been some problems with some batteries.  
As far as I know that is wrong. Most
labtops are designed to be able to
be run plugged in without problem.  Especially if they have Hydride
batteries. Of course , what the manufacturer says should rule.


 =======================================================================
Most people's favorite way to end a game is by winning.
=======================================================================
Aaron Konstam telephone: [phone] e-mail: akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net

[Mikkel]

Aaron Konstam wrote:
>  On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 17:44 -0700, Les wrote:
> >         Oh, one other thing.  If you use the laptop plugged in all the
> > time, the charger are not designed to do that.  Eventually the batteries
> > will overcharge and possibly short.  Check your laptop at the manufacturers
> > list also to ensure you do not have a recalled battery pack.  There
> > have been some problems with some batteries. 
>  As far as I know that is wrong. Most labtops are designed to be able to
>  be run plugged in without problem.  Especially if they have Hydride
>  batteries. Of course , what the manufacturer says should rule.
>   
With my Toshiba A105-S4004, they tell you not to leave it plugged in
after the battery is charged if you are not using it. But I am not
sure how much that has to do with heat, and how much it has to do
with battery life. I have a neighbor that used her laptop more as a
desktop, and left it plugged in all the time. Her battery life
dropped to nothing in about 2 years. (10 minutes from full charge to
dead.)

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

[Aaron Konstam]

On Fri, 2007-07-27 at 10:50 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>  Aaron Konstam wrote:
>  > On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 17:44 -0700, Les wrote:
>  >>         Oh, one other thing.  If you use the laptop plugged in all the
>  >> time, the charger are not designed to do that.  Eventually the batteries
>  >> will overcharge and possibly short.  Check your laptop at the manufacturers
>  >> list also to ensure you do not have a recalled battery pack.  There
>  >> have been some problems with some batteries. 
>  > As far as I know that is wrong. Most labtops are designed to be able to
>  > be run plugged in without problem.  Especially if they have Hydride
>  > batteries. Of course , what the manufacturer says should rule.
>  > 
>  With my Toshiba A105-S4004, they tell you not to leave it plugged in
>  after the battery is charged if you are not using it. But I am not
>  sure how much that has to do with heat, and how much it has to do
>  with battery life. I have a neighbor that used her laptop more as a
>  desktop, and left it plugged in all the time. Her battery life
>  dropped to nothing in about 2 years. (10 minutes from full charge to
>  dead.) 
It is my fault for  making statements that are too global. It matters
how old her laptop is.
1. If you have a metal hydride battery it can be probably plugged in all
the time. On my laptop there is an ion that appears whenever the battery
is charging. When the battery becomes fully charged the icon on the
front goes off leading to believe it has a circuit that cuts off the
charging when the battery is fully charged.

2. If you have an older machine with maybe a Ni Cd battery then the
battery has a memory feature. If you let the battery get half discharged
and then charge it will in the future be able to be discharged only to
the half charged condition. I suspect that is what happened to the
person you referred to.

But is truth my statement was too sweeping. The behavior depends on the
laptop and one needs to do what the manufacturer tells you needs to be
done.



--
=======================================================================
Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters.
=======================================================================
Aaron Konstam telephone: [phone] e-mail: akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net

[Mikkel]

Aaron Konstam wrote:
>  On Fri, 2007-07-27 at 10:50 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> > With my Toshiba A105-S4004, they tell you not to leave it plugged in
> > after the battery is charged if you are not using it. But I am not
> > sure how much that has to do with heat, and how much it has to do
> > with battery life. I have a neighbor that used her laptop more as a
> > desktop, and left it plugged in all the time. Her battery life
> > dropped to nothing in about 2 years. (10 minutes from full charge to
> > dead.)
>  It is my fault for  making statements that are too global. It matters
>  how old her laptop is.
>  1. If you have a metal hydride battery it can be probably plugged in all
>  the time. On my laptop there is an ion that appears whenever the battery
>  is charging. When the battery becomes fully charged the icon on the
>  front goes off leading to believe it has a circuit that cuts off the
>  charging when the battery is fully charged.
>  
>  2. If you have an older machine with maybe a Ni Cd battery then the
>  battery has a memory feature. If you let the battery get half discharged
>  and then charge it will in the future be able to be discharged only to
>  the half charged condition. I suspect that is what happened to the
>  person you referred to.
>   
Nope - it had a Li-ion battery. The battery circuit even thought it
had longer until the battery voltage dropped because it was almost
at end of charge. It couldn't seam to calibrate to the new
performance level when I let it discharge and recharge. Maybe
because the change was too drastic from the last time it was cycled.

>  But is truth my statement was too sweeping. The behavior depends on
> the
>  laptop and one needs to do what the manufacturer tells you needs to be
>  done.
>   
Well, I wouldn't consider the Toshiba that old - It is a core dual
machine with a Li-ion battery. It has a "light" that is yellow when
charging, and blue when charged. But they still warn against leaving
it plugged in when charged. They also recommend running a full
discharge/charge cycle every month:

❖ At least once a month, disconnect the computer from a
  power source and operate it on battery power until the
  battery pack fully discharges. Before doing so, follow the
  steps below:
  1   Turn off the computer’s power.
  2   Disconnect the AC adapter and turn on the
      computer’s power. If it does not turn on, go to step 4.
  3   Operate the computer on battery power for five
      minutes. If the battery pack has at least five minutes
      of operating time, continue operating until the battery
      pack is fully discharged. If the battery light flashes or
      there is some other warning to indicate a low battery,
      go to step 4.
  4   Connect the AC adapter to the computer and the
      power cord/cable to a power outlet. The DC-IN or
      AC power-light should glow blue, and the battery
      light should glow amber to indicate that the battery
      pack is being charged. If the DC-IN or AC power-
      light indicator does not glow, power is not being
      supplied. Check the connections for the AC adapter
      and power cord/cable.
  5   Charge the battery pack until the battery light glows
      blue.
❖ If you have extra battery packs, rotate their use.
❖ If you will not be using the system for an extended
  period, more than one month, remove the battery pack.
❖ Disconnect the AC adapter when the battery is fully
  charged. Overcharging makes the battery hot and
  shortens its life.
❖ If you are not going to use the computer for more than
  eight hours, disconnect the AC adapter.
❖ Store spare battery packs in a cool dry place out of direct
  sunlight.

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

[Aaron Konstam]

On Fri, 2007-07-27 at 17:40 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>  Aaron Konstam wrote:
>  > On Fri, 2007-07-27 at 10:50 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>  >> With my Toshiba A105-S4004, they tell you not to leave it plugged in
>  >> after the battery is charged if you are not using it. But I am not
>  >> sure how much that has to do with heat, and how much it has to do
>  >> with battery life. I have a neighbor that used her laptop more as a
>  >> desktop, and left it plugged in all the time. Her battery life
>  >> dropped to nothing in about 2 years. (10 minutes from full charge to
>  >> dead.)
>  > It is my fault for  making statements that are too global. It matters
>  > how old her laptop is.
>  > 1. If you have a metal hydride battery it can be probably plugged in all
>  > the time. On my laptop there is an ion that appears whenever the battery
>  > is charging. When the battery becomes fully charged the icon on the
>  > front goes off leading to believe it has a circuit that cuts off the
>  > charging when the battery is fully charged.
>  > 
>  > 2. If you have an older machine with maybe a Ni Cd battery then the
>  > battery has a memory feature. If you let the battery get half discharged
>  > and then charge it will in the future be able to be discharged only to
>  > the half charged condition. I suspect that is what happened to the
>  > person you referred to.
>  > 
>  Nope - it had a Li-ion battery. The battery circuit even thought it
>  had longer until the battery voltage dropped because it was almost
>  at end of charge. It couldn't seam to calibrate to the new
>  performance level when I let it discharge and recharge. Maybe
>  because the change was too drastic from the last time it was cycled.
>  
>  > But is truth my statement was too sweeping. The behavior depends on the
>  > laptop and one needs to do what the manufacturer tells you needs to be
>  > done.
>  > 
>  Well, I wouldn't consider the Toshiba that old - It is a core dual
>  machine with a Li-ion battery. It has a "light" that is yellow when
>  charging, and blue when charged. But they still warn against leaving
>  it plugged in when charged. They also recommend running a full
>  discharge/charge cycle every month:
>  
>  ❖ At least once a month, disconnect the computer from a
>    power source and operate it on battery power until the
>    battery pack fully discharges. Before doing so, follow the
>    steps below:
>    1   Turn off the computer’s power.
>    2   Disconnect the AC adapter and turn on the
>        computer’s power. If it does not turn on, go to step 4.
>    3   Operate the computer on battery power for five
>        minutes. If the battery pack has at least five minutes
>        of operating time, continue operating until the battery
>        pack is fully discharged. If the battery light flashes or
>        there is some other warning to indicate a low battery,
>        go to step 4.
>    4   Connect the AC adapter to the computer and the
>        power cord/cable to a power outlet. The DC-IN or
>        AC power-light should glow blue, and the battery
>        light should glow amber to indicate that the battery
>        pack is being charged. If the DC-IN or AC power-
>        light indicator does not glow, power is not being
>        supplied. Check the connections for the AC adapter
>        and power cord/cable.
>    5   Charge the battery pack until the battery light glows
>        blue. 
Ok, you have convinced me that laptops are different. On my Dell D810
the Users manual reports that you can run the computer plugged in and
the battery will not over change. So I guess the manual must be
consulted.

--
=======================================================================
Science Fiction, Double Feature. Frank has built and lost his creature.
Darkness has conquered Brad and Janet. The servants gone to a distant
planet. Wo, oh, oh, oh. At the late night, double feature, Picture show.
I want to go, oh, oh, oh. To the late night, double feature, Picture
show. -- Rocky Horror Picture Show
=======================================================================
Aaron Konstam telephone: [phone] e-mail: akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net

[Tim]

On Fri, 2007-07-27 at 10:50 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>  With my Toshiba A105-S4004, they tell you not to leave it plugged in
>  after the battery is charged if you are not using it. But I am not
>  sure how much that has to do with heat, and how much it has to do
>  with battery life. I have a neighbor that used her laptop more as a
>  desktop, and left it plugged in all the time. Her battery life
>  dropped to nothing in about 2 years. (10 minutes from full charge to
>  dead.)  
It's generally a good idea to make use of rechargable batteries - run
the device they're meant for, using the batteries, from time to time.
Quite apart from the technical reasons, of keeping the batteries alive,
there's not much point owning them (and paying for them) if you don't
make use of them.

-- 
[tim@bigblack ~]$ uname -ipr
2.6.22.1-33.fc7 i686 i386

Using FC 4, 5, 6 & 7, plus CentOS 5.  Today, it's FC7.

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

[Aaron Konstam]

On Sat, 2007-07-28 at 13:41 +0930, Tim wrote:
>  On Fri, 2007-07-27 at 10:50 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>  > With my Toshiba A105-S4004, they tell you not to leave it plugged in
>  > after the battery is charged if you are not using it. But I am not
>  > sure how much that has to do with heat, and how much it has to do
>  > with battery life. I have a neighbor that used her laptop more as a
>  > desktop, and left it plugged in all the time. Her battery life
>  > dropped to nothing in about 2 years. (10 minutes from full charge to
>  > dead.) 
>  
>  It's generally a good idea to make use of rechargable batteries - run
>  the device they're meant for, using the batteries, from time to time.
>  Quite apart from the technical reasons, of keeping the batteries
>  alive,
>  there's not much point owning them (and paying for them) if you don't
>  make use of them.  
Au contraire , there is lots o reasons. One is when I am running
the
machine at home for 3 hours with a battery that runs it for 2 hrs and 14
minutes. On DELL D810 it is designed to run that way so why not?
--
=======================================================================
He keeps differentiating, flying off on a tangent.
=======================================================================
Aaron Konstam telephone: [phone] e-mail: akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net

[Tim]

Tim: 
> > It's generally a good idea to make use of rechargable
> batteries - run
> > the device they're meant for, using the batteries, from time to time.
> > Quite apart from the technical reasons, of keeping the batteries
> > alive, there's not much point owning them (and paying for them) if you
> > don't make use of them.  
Aaron Konstam: 
>  Au contraire , there is lots o reasons. One is when I am running the
>  machine at home for 3 hours with a battery that runs it for 2 hrs and 14
>  minutes. On DELL D810 it is designed to run that way so why not? 
I'm not quite sure what you're disagreeing with.

One of my points was that I don't see much sense in paying for a battery
if you're not going to use it as a battery, they're not cheap.  That
doesn't mean you have to use it all the time, but using some times would
do it good.

Batteries generally last the best when made use of.  Ones that sit there
unused, or always being charged, usually suffer.  Ones that sit in
equipment are often slightly discharging through the equipment, and
being trickled charged, constantly.  Consider yourself lucky if yours is
fine in those conditions.

Chargers are *sometimes* are fine to leave connected, as *some* are
designed *not* to keep on charging a battery needlessly.  Others are not
so intelligently designed.  (Whether that be the box you plug into the
wall, or circuitry in the laptop between battery and the power brick.)

Some laptops are not really good to run continuously, they may have not
so brilliant cooling.  They may use a laptop drive that's been designed
to last being turned on and off a lot, but not so much for continuous
running.  The opposite of most desktop drives.

There's a multitude of factors, and it's hard to say what's best for
some, it's even harder to attempt to say what's best for all.

-- 
[tim@bigblack ~]$ uname -ipr
2.6.22.1-33.fc7 i686 i386

Using FC 4, 5, 6 & 7, plus CentOS 5.  Today, it's FC7.

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

[Aaron Konstam]

On Sun, 2007-07-29 at 19:03 +0930, Tim wrote:
>  Tim: 
>  >> It's generally a good idea to make use of rechargable batteries - run
>  >> the device they're meant for, using the batteries, from time to time.
>  >> Quite apart from the technical reasons, of keeping the batteries
>  >> alive, there's not much point owning them (and paying for them) if you
>  >> don't make use of them. 
>  
>  Aaron Konstam: 
>  > Au contraire , there is lots o reasons. One is when I am running the
>  > machine at home for 3 hours with a battery that runs it for 2 hrs and 14
>  > minutes. On DELL D810 it is designed to run that way so why not?
>  
>  I'm not quite sure what you're disagreeing with.
>  
>  One of my points was that I don't see much sense in paying for a battery
>  if you're not going to use it as a battery, they're not cheap.  That
>  doesn't mean you have to use it all the time, but using some times would
>  do it good.
>  
>  Batteries generally last the best when made use of.  Ones that sit there
>  unused, or always being charged, usually suffer.  Ones that sit in
>  equipment are often slightly discharging through the equipment, and
>  being trickled charged, constantly.  Consider yourself lucky if yours is
>  fine in those conditions.
>  
>  Chargers are *sometimes* are fine to leave connected, as *some* are
>  designed *not* to keep on charging a battery needlessly.  Others are not
>  so intelligently designed.  (Whether that be the box you plug into the
>  wall, or circuitry in the laptop between battery and the power brick.)
>  
>  Some laptops are not really good to run continuously, they may have not
>  so brilliant cooling.  They may use a laptop drive that's been designed
>  to last being turned on and off a lot, but not so much for continuous
>  running.  The opposite of most desktop drives.
>  
>  There's a multitude  f factors, and it's hard to say what's best for
>  some, it's even harder to attempt to say what's best for all.
>   
I have  a terrible urge to send replies to your private address even if
they are rejected. 

So what are you suggesting. That when I run the laptop on power I remove
the battery. Well here is my didactic statement for the day. I would not
buy a laptop that could not be run on wall power even if the battery is
installed. I always thought Toshiba made high class laptops. If I found
my Toshiba laptop needed to have the battery removed when I ran it on
wall power I would sell it the next day. Would you buy a cell phone that
did not stop charging when the battery was fully charged. I would not.
We are in the 21th century and we know how to construct a device with a
battery that works correctly.
--
=======================================================================
Slow day. Practice crawling.
=======================================================================
Aaron Konstam telephone: [phone] e-mail: akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net

[Tim]

On Sun, 2007-07-29 at 08:25 -0500, Aaron Konstam wrote:
>  I have a terrible urge to send replies to your private address even
> if
>  they are rejected.  
You can go right ahead, but yahoo deletes mail sent to it without some
magic words in the subject line.  ;-)  I know nothing about the mail it
deletes.  I get zero spam from the list, that way.

>  So what are you suggesting. That when I run the laptop on power I
>  remove the battery. 
I don't know for that particular model, but for some laptops you'll get
that advice.

>  I would not buy a laptop that could not be run on wall power even if
>  the battery is installed. 
Me either, if I were going to buy one, and could make that sort of
decision about which one I'd buy.

>  I always thought Toshiba made high class laptops. If I found my
>  Toshiba laptop needed to have the battery removed when I ran it on
>  wall power I would sell it the next day. 
You may not have to, I don't know the reputation for their laptops.  But
there have been people who've found their hardly used battery to be an
utter lemon by the time they got around to wanting to use the laptop on
battery power.

Yes, I agree with you and say that sort of thing's crap design.  I also
think it's crap how so many battery powered devices don't handle a
flattening battery properly. e.g. Not shutting down before the battery
goes too flat, and the device behaving badly in its last moments.

>  Would you buy a cell phone that did not stop charging when the
> battery
>  was fully charged. I would not. 
Slightly different situation:  Most mobile phones are unplugged for a
great portion of their time, and used powered from their battery.

>  We are in the 21th century and we know how to construct a device
> with
>  a battery that works correctly.  
You'd think so, but then there's plenty of examples of bad design out
there, even ones with billions of dollars behind the companies and their
products.  I don't think we need to name names, we know who they are.

-- 
[tim@bigblack ~]$ uname -ipr
2.6.22.1-33.fc7 i686 i386

Using FC 4, 5, 6 & 7, plus CentOS 5.  Today, it's FC7.

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

[Aaron Konstam]

On Sun, 2007-07-29 at 23:37 +0930, Tim wrote:
>  On Sun, 2007-07-29 at 08:25 -0500, Aaron Konstam wrote:
>  > I have a terrible urge to send replies to your private address even if
>  > they are rejected. 
>  
>  You can go right ahead, but yahoo deletes mail sent to it without some
>  magic words in the subject line.  ;-)  I know nothing abouneed not argue about it.t the
> mail it
>  deletes.  I get zero spam from the list, that way. 
Spamassassin removes spam very
effectively. In my fedora-list folder I
have never seen a spam message.Your solution to my mind is overkill and
somewhat impolite. I feel the same way about people with unlisted phone
numbers but that is a whole other story.That is my hang up and I will
stick with it. We need not argue about it.
>  
>  > So what are you suggesting. That when I run the laptop on power I
>  > remove the battery.
>  
>  I don't know for that particular model, but for some laptops you'll get
>  that advice. 
Not on my laptop.
>  
>  > I would not buy a laptop that could not be run on wall power even if
>  > the battery is installed.
>  
>  Me either, if I were going to buy one, and could make that sort of
>  decision about which one I'd buy.
>  
>  > I always thought Toshiba made high class laptops. If I found my
>  > Toshiba laptop needed to have the battery removed when I ran it on
>  > wall power I would sell it the next day.
>  
>  You may not have to, I don't know the reputation for their laptops.  But
>  there have been people who've found their hardly used battery to be an
>  utter lemon by the time they got around to wanting to use the laptop on
>  battery power. 
I have used it on both wall power and with the battery alone and
have
not found that problem.
>  
>  Yes, I agree with you and say that sort of thing's crap design.  I also
>  think it's crap how so many battery powered devices don't handle a
>  flattening battery properly. e.g. Not shutting down before the battery
>  goes too flat, and the device behaving badly in its last moments.
>  
>  > Would you buy a cell phone that did not stop charging when the battery
>  > was fully charged. I would not.
>  
>  Slightly different situation:  Most mobile phones are unplugged for a
>  great portion of their time, and used powered from their battery.
>  
>  > We are in the 21th century and we know how to construct a device with
>  > a battery that works correctly. 
>  
>  You'd think so, but then there's plenty of examples of bad design out
>  there, even ones with billions of dollars behind the companies and their
>  products.  I don't think we need to name names, we know who they are. 
>   
--
=======================================================================
Q: How many Harvard MBA's does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Just
one. He grasps it firmly and the universe revolves around him.
=======================================================================
Aaron Konstam telephone: [phone] e-mail: akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Tim]

Aaron Konstam:
> >> I have a terrible urge to send replies to your private
> address even
> >> if they are rejected.  
Tim:
> > You can go right ahead, but yahoo deletes mail sent to it without
> some
> > magic words in the subject line.  ;-)  I know nothing about the mail it
> > deletes.  I get zero spam from the list, that way. 
Aaron Konstam:
>  Spamassassin removes spam very effectively. 
In my experience, it's rather bad.  I see quite a few false positives,
and a lot of spam getting through.  It can be trained better, but that's
hard for me to do if I run it where it needs to be run - on the (remote)
mailserver, hosted by someone else who only give me limited control.
Most of the un-marked spam that I see rarely has enough points to
qualify, so it's hard to train effectively, anyway.  I've yet to see a
hosted mail server doing spam assassin well.  There probably are some
expensive ones that manage it, but I'm not going to use an expensive
mail service.

This is a fundamental issue with using something like spam assassin:

It needs to be run on the SMTP server, as an INPUT filter, so that spam
gets refused before entry, with a notification as part of the SMTP
transaction.  That way, the sender (the actual sender, not just the
address in the "from" header) gets notified that the message wasn't
accepted, and a genuine sender can try again in a manner that doesn't
get rejected (e.g. without HTML, or an attachment, or other things).
Otherwise, if they're not told, they think you got their mail, and they
didn't.  That's a serious problem if you try to conduct any business
through e-mail.

If you run it locally, your external SMTP server has already accepted
the mail, it's too late to reject it.  People who mailed you and
accidentally got filtered out as spam have no idea.  And, you have to
filter a lot of mail yourself.  Not to mention having to check the junk
mailbox, yourself, which defeats the purpose of running an anti-spam
system.

>  In my fedora-list folder I have never seen a spam message. Your
>  solution to my mind is overkill and somewhat impolite. 
I take the usenet approach.  This is a list, reply to the list, in
general.  It's not personal mail, and I don't expect personal mail.
Well, not out of the blue.  Occasionally I get someone asking if they
can mail me privately, and I'll oblige unless I see no point in it.

I've used internet mailing lists for about ten years now, and BBS ones
before that.  Apart from the annoying spam, I found that you'd get
private mail from time to time from some cretin who'd got a bee in their
bonnet about something, and goes into a personal attack the likes of
which they'd never dare do in public.  It wouldn't have to be someone
that you'd had an argument with, some people go off their rope for no
apparent reason.

It was that sort of thing, even more than spam, that made me decide to
join this list in this manner.

There's a few other pains that are near the top of my mailing list
aggrevations, too:  People sending vacation auto-replies to lists with
hundreds of members.  People using a challenge/reponse anti-spam system
on their mailing list subscriptions.  Those who do those stupid things
deserve a few hundred replies back from the list members.  I belive the
traditional Unix response is a multi-megabyte core dump.

-- 
[tim@bigblack ~]$ uname -ipr
2.6.22.1-33.fc7 i686 i386

Using FC 4, 5, 6 & 7, plus CentOS 5.  Today, it's FC7.

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Andy Green]

Somebody in the thread at some point said:

>  This is a fundamental issue with using something like spam assassin:
>  
>  It needs to be run on the SMTP server, as an INPUT filter, so that spam
>  gets refused before entry, with a notification as part of the SMTP
>  transaction.  That way, the sender (the actual sender, not just the 
That's right, it's much harder once anybody accepted the mail, because
then that person is trying to pass the mail on probably from a real
honest server.  I found this to be really effective for over a year now:

 - greylisting (I use gps + sqlite)

 - Spamhaus RBL lookup (IPs that are detected by Spamhaus as sending
spam to their fake emails get blacklisted here)

 - tight rules on postfix:

    - insist that the server has reverse DNS

    - insist that the recipient user actually exists (end of most virus
mails)

    - insist on proper Helo FQDN (lot of spam tools and viruses don't
take care of this)

    - Use helo_restrictions to override one way or the other

Spams are down to five or so a day.

-Andy

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Tim]

On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 11:25 +0100, Andy Green wrote:
>  I found this to be really effective for over a year now:
>  
>   - greylisting (I use gps + sqlite) 
I'm not enamoured of greylisting, though that might be down to the poor
implementations of it that've held my mail up for hours, rather than
greylisting in itself.

>   - Spamhaus RBL lookup (IPs that are detected by Spamhaus as sending
>  spam to their fake emails get blacklisted here) 
Do they get false positives added by malicious people?  One of my hosts
uses a RBL system, but I don't think it's spamhaus.

>   - tight rules on postfix:
>  
>      - insist that the server has reverse DNS 
Not all do, nor do they really have to, even if it's a damn good idea.
This could be a problem.

>      - insist that the recipient user actually exists (end of most
>  virus mails) 
Does it also reject if the message has more than one recipient, and
they're not all real users?

I put a bait address into a HTML comment on my website, anything that
spammed that (along with any other address) got trashed.  No real user
would have seen the bait, but HTML trawlers would.  I could kill that
mail with 100% certainty.

-- 
[tim@bigblack ~]$ uname -ipr
2.6.22.1-33.fc7 i686 i386

Using FC 4, 5, 6 & 7, plus CentOS 5.  Today, it's FC7.

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Andy Green]

Somebody in the thread at some point said:
>  On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 11:25 +0100, Andy Green wrote:
> > I found this to be really effective for over a year now:
> >
> >  - greylisting (I use gps + sqlite)
>  
>  I'm not enamoured of greylisting, though that might be down to the poor
>  implementations of it that've held my mail up for hours, rather than
>  greylisting in itself. 
The first time you get mail from someone it will hold it up for some
minutes, and then for as long as it takes the other server to retry,
usually some hours.  After that, the sender/server/recipient triplet is
held in a sqlite database whitelist automatically, so there is no delay.

> >  - Spamhaus RBL lookup (IPs that are detected by Spamhaus as
> sending
> > spam to their fake emails get blacklisted here)
>  
>  Do they get false positives added by malicious people?  One of my hosts
>  uses a RBL system, but I don't think it's spamhaus. 
They don't specify their fake email addresses and don't accept external
recommendations for the blacklist.

> >  - tight rules on postfix:
> >
> >     - insist that the server has reverse DNS
>  
>  Not all do, nor do they really have to, even if it's a damn good idea.
>  This could be a problem. 
As I said I've had over a year to assess what this set of rules performs
like: I had to whitelist only two real servers in that time to work
around the rules.  That's fine by me.  I didn't see any false positives
from the blackhole either, although I guess you wouldn't.

> >     - insist that the recipient user actually exists (end of
> most
> > virus mails)
>  
>  Does it also reject if the message has more than one recipient, and
>  they're not all real users? 
It rejects the whole mail if any of the recipients are not valid users
on my mailserver.

>  I put a bait address into a HTML comment on my website, anything
> that
>  spammed that (along with any other address) got trashed.  No real user
>  would have seen the bait, but HTML trawlers would.  I could kill that
>  mail with 100% certainty. 
That's what the Spamhaus blackhole list is doing, except they publish
their "winners" by a faked up DNS server.

-Andy

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Tony Nelson]

At 8:25 PM +0930 7/30/07, Tim wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 11:25 +0100, Andy Green wrote:
> > I found this to be really effective for over a year now:
> >
> >  - greylisting (I use gps + sqlite)
>
> I'm not enamoured of greylisting, though that might be down to the poor
> implementations of it that've held my mail up for hours, rather than
> greylisting in itself. 
I'm not sure about greylisting either, but AIUI, the usual holdup is from
the sending MTA's retry interval, which for sendmail seems to default to 1
hour.  An MTA with exponential backoff might well be worse.

I mostly notice greylisting with recipients I don't send mail to often.


> >  - tight rules on postfix:
> >
> >     - insist that the server has reverse DNS
>
> Not all do, nor do they really have to, even if it's a damn good idea.
> This could be a problem. 
Every server should have rDNS, not just MTAs.  RDNS might not map to the
server's FQDN.  The MTA's FQDN should be real.  Currently I'm trying
insisting that the hello name resolve in DNS for external connections.

I also prohibit relaying through dynamic IPs, by requiring the envelope
sender domain for connections whose rDNS looks dynamic resolve to the
connect address.  That seems to work well, rejecting about 95% of the
messages (with no obvious false positives, judging by the subject lines).


> >     - insist that the recipient user actually exists (end of
> most
> > virus mails)
>
> Does it also reject if the message has more than one recipient, and
> they're not all real users?
>
> I put a bait address into a HTML comment on my website, anything that
> spammed that (along with any other address) got trashed.  No real user
> would have seen the bait, but HTML trawlers would.  I could kill that
> mail with 100% certainty. 
Hmm.  AFAIK, sendmail only rejects the recipients that don't exist, and
allows the others through.  Bait seems like a good idea, and could be
easily implemented in the milter I use, but as most incoming spams have
only a single recipient I don't think it would help much.
-- 
____________________________________________________________________
TonyN.:'                       <mailto:[e-mail]>
      '                              <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Tony Nelson]

At 11:25 AM +0100 7/30/07, Andy Green wrote:
 ...
>     - insist on proper Helo FQDN (lot of spam tools and viruses
> don't
> take care of this) 
 ...

Do you require the name to be real, or only in valid form?  That is, do you
do a DNS lookup on the name?
-- 
____________________________________________________________________
TonyN.:'                       <mailto:[e-mail]>
      '                              <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Andy Green]

Somebody in the thread at some point said:
>  At 11:25 AM +0100 7/30/07, Andy Green wrote:
>   ...
> >    - insist on proper Helo FQDN (lot of spam tools and viruses don't
> > take care of this)
>   ...
>  
>  Do you require the name to be real, or only in valid form?  That is, do you
>  do a DNS lookup on the name? 
All of the above.... (this is from /etc/postfix/main.cf)

smtpd_helo_required = yes

smtpd_helo_restrictions =
  # our personalized list of accepts and denys based on HELO name
   check_helo_access hash:/etc/postfix/helo_access,
  # talk to our local boxes that want to send through us
 permit_mynetworks,
  # no Reverse DNS gets the boot
 reject_unknown_client,
  # reject bad syntax hostname
 reject_invalid_hostname,
  # non FQDN gets the boot
 reject_non_fqdn_hostname

and after that it checks it against the blackhole DNS server and then
greylisting.

-Andy

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Tony Nelson]

At 11:45 PM +0100 7/30/07, Andy Green wrote:
> Somebody in the thread at some point said:
> > At 11:25 AM +0100 7/30/07, Andy Green wrote:
> >  ...
> >>    - insist on proper Helo FQDN (lot of spam tools and viruses don't
> >> take care of this)
> >  ...
> >
> > Do you require the name to be real, or only in valid form?  That is, do you
> > do a DNS lookup on the name?
>
> All of the above.... (this is from /etc/postfix/main.cf)
>
> smtpd_helo_required = yes
>
> smtpd_helo_restrictions =
>   # our personalized list of accepts and denys based on HELO name
>    check_helo_access hash:/etc/postfix/helo_access,
>   # talk to our local boxes that want to send through us
>  permit_mynetworks,
>   # no Reverse DNS gets the boot
>  reject_unknown_client, 
I think reject_unknown_client refers to rDNS for the connect IP, not the
hello hostname, which would be reject_unknown_hostname.  My milter
disallows relaying from any connect IP that seems "dynamic", such as having
no rDNS at all.

>   # reject bad syntax hostname
>  reject_invalid_hostname,
>   # non FQDN gets the boot
>  reject_non_fqdn_hostname 
I have my milter set up to reject any form of numeric hello, even the
RFC-compliant [xx.xx.xx.xx], and then to reject if the hello has DNS "A"
record.  I don't check for "MX", since AIUI anything with an "MX"
record
should have an "A" record, and "MX" records are for receiving email,
not
sending it.

> and after that it checks it against the blackhole DNS server and then
> greylisting. 
OK, thanks.
-- 
____________________________________________________________________
TonyN.:'                       <mailto:[e-mail]>
      '                              <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Andy Green]

Somebody in the thread at some point said:

>  I think reject_unknown_client refers to rDNS for the connect IP, not
> the
>  hello hostname, which would be reject_unknown_hostname.  My milter
>  disallows relaying from any connect IP that seems "dynamic", such as having
>  no rDNS at all. 
You're quite right.  Now there aren't too many direct spams I quite like
looking at the headers of the successful ones anyway, I'll do a host on
the HELO fqdn by hand for a while and see if it would be worth the risk
of unwanted rejects by adding reject_unknown_hostname.

> >  # reject bad syntax hostname
> > reject_invalid_hostname,
> >  # non FQDN gets the boot
> > reject_non_fqdn_hostname
>  
>  I have my milter set up to reject any form of numeric hello, even the
>  RFC-compliant [xx.xx.xx.xx], and then to reject if the hello has DNS "A"
>  record.  I don't check for "MX", since AIUI anything with an "MX"
> record
>  should have an "A" record, and "MX" records are for receiving email,
> not
>  sending it. 
Do you mean "reject if the hello *doesn't* have a DNA A record"?

Thanks for the precision on the host and HELO reject_unknown_*

-Andy

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Tony Nelson]

At 7:12 AM +0100 7/31/07, Andy Green wrote:
> Somebody in the thread at some point said:
>
> > I think reject_unknown_client refers to rDNS for the connect IP, not the
> > hello hostname, which would be reject_unknown_hostname.  My milter
> > disallows relaying from any connect IP that seems "dynamic", such as
> having
> > no rDNS at all.
>
> You're quite right.  Now there aren't too many direct spams I quite like
> looking at the headers of the successful ones anyway, I'll do a host on
> the HELO fqdn by hand for a while and see if it would be worth the risk
> of unwanted rejects by adding reject_unknown_hostname.
>
> >>  # reject bad syntax hostname
> >> reject_invalid_hostname,
> >>  # non FQDN gets the boot
> >> reject_non_fqdn_hostname
> >
> > I have my milter set up to reject any form of numeric hello, even the
> > RFC-compliant [xx.xx.xx.xx], and then to reject if the hello has DNS "A"
> > record.  I don't check for "MX", since AIUI anything with an
> "MX" record
> > should have an "A" record, and "MX" records are for receiving
> email, not
> > sending it.
>
> Do you mean "reject if the hello *doesn't* have a DNA A record"? 
Opps, yes.


> Thanks for the precision on the host and HELO reject_unknown_* 
Welcome.
-- 
____________________________________________________________________
TonyN.:'                       <mailto:[e-mail]>
      '                              <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Aaron Konstam]

On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 19:40 +0930, Tim wrote:
>  
>  In my experience, it's rather bad.  I see quite a few false positives,
>  and a lot of spam getting through.  It can be trained better, but
>  that's
>  hard for me to do if I run it where it needs to be run - on the
>  (remote)
>  mailserver, hosted by someone else who only give me limited control.
>  Most of the un-marked spam that I see rarely has enough points to
>  qualify, so it's hard to train effectively, anyway.  I've yet to see a
>  hosted mail server doing spam assassin well.  There probably are some
>  expensive ones that manage it, but I'm not going to use an expensive
>  mail service.
>  
>  This is a fundamental issue with using something like spam assassin:
>  
>  It needs to be run on the SMTP server, as an INPUT filter, so that
>  spam
>  gets refused before entry, with a notification as part of the SMTP
>  transaction.  That way, the sender (the actual sender, not just the
>  address in the "from" header) gets notified that the message wasn't
>  accepted, and a genuine sender can try again in a manner that doesn't
>  get rejected (e.g. without HTML, or an attachment, or other things).
>  Otherwise, if they're not told, they think you got their mail, and
>  they
>  didn't.  That's a serious problem if you try to conduct any business
>  through e-mail.
>  
>  If you run it locally, your external SMTP server has already accepted
>  the mail, it's too late to reject it.  People who mailed you and
>  accidentally got filtered out as spam have no idea.  And, you have to
>  filter a lot of mail yourself.  Not to mention havi thng to check the
>  junk
>  mailbox, yourself, which defeats the purpose of running an anti-spam
>  system.  
You are asking a lot form a spam filter. But let me share with you this:
1. For the first time spamassassiin really works with evolution in f7.
I get no more that 1 spam message a week out of maybe a 1000 messages.

2. It is impossible to run a spam filter without checking the junk
folder since you will lose a few files that you wanted to see. Training
in this regard is everything.

3. Asking your spam filter to notify the spam senders is crazy. Why
would I want all the cialis vender's and Nigeria con men to know their
mail did not get through.

4. I guess being a New Yorker I have a thicker skin. I have never gotten
a message from a crazy that I felt would damage my equilibrium. If one
appears I put him in my blacklist and he disappears.

The real thing is communication channels are designed to communicate.
And some communication does not belong on a public list. To tell people
they can't communicate with you except if they know the secret code word
to me is rude. I have no good examples in e-mail communication but If I
could e-mail you directly to give you examples why having an unlisted
phone number can be between disastrous to life threatening in some
situations.

But since I can't communicate with you off the list lets drop the
subject.



--
=======================================================================
Humor in the Court: Q: Are you qualified to give a urine sample? A: Yes,
I have been since early childhood.
=======================================================================
Aaron Konstam telephone: [phone] e-mail: akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Tim]

Aaron Konstam:
>  You are asking a lot form a spam filter. 
Not really, it's the computer, not me...  ;-)

>  But let me share with you this:
>  1. For the first time spamassassiin really works with evolution in f7.
>  I get no more that 1 spam message a week out of maybe a 1000 messages. 
I picked on that one as just an example, but it's the only one available
from my various mail hosts.  As I said before, it needs to be done on
the server.  Else *YOU* are still getting spam (wasting storage space
and downloading it), and lost mail gets silently discarded or you have
to manually check.  And that's the problem, where it's remotely
installed, its not modifiable enough by me to be worth it.

>  2. It is impossible to run a spam filter without checking the junk
>  folder since you will lose a few files that you wanted to see. Training
>  in this regard is everything. 
Yes, and no.

You can run spam systems that do the poison bait test that I outlined,
and nothing more.  If anything posts to my bait address, it gets marked
as spam, 100% error free.  The same message posted, separately, to my
other accounts is identified as spam, also with 100% certainty.  Such
tests can be done without further care.

You can also do other tests, giving them less certainty, but I found it
not necessary.  The spam I was getting was always addressed to all of my
contacts.  Sometimes as separate messages, sent at the same time,
sometimes as one message addressed to a few of them.

>  3. Asking your spam filter to notify the spam senders is crazy. Why
>  would I want all the cialis vender's and Nigeria con men to know their
>  mail did not get through. 
You're thinking about this from just one point of view.

Firstly, let's look at killing spam:  If it's spam, you don't want it,
obviously.  If you *reject* at the input stage, it's like firewalling.
They fail.  And it's better that they know that.  Auto spam systems can
give up on your address, giving the world a bit less traffic to deal
with.  Scattergun spammers, not caring about the response, aren't given
anything more useful to them than your system silently accepting their
spam.  They already have your address.

Secondly, let's look at not killing non-spam (ham):  You have someone
trying to mail you who should be able to, but for some reason their
message triggers the spam detector.  If that was your long lost brother,
your boss telling you something important, your potential client asking
you something or accepting your quote, etc., and it's silently rejected,
you've lost out something important, perhaps permanently.  If you have
to check your junk mail, personally, why bother having an anti-spam
system in the first place?  And you might check it too late to be any
good.  But, if your system rejects the message, with a notification,
that sender has the chance to try resending it, differently, so that it
gets through.  Think of making phone calls; if it's busy, the caller
tries again; if it rings and rings, they don't know what to do; if it
takes a message, they expect that someone will listen to it.

This is at the SMTP level.  It doesn't backfire onto some faked address,
spamming yet another person.  If they'd connected directly to your SMTP
server, part way through *trying* to send it'd abort and pop up a
warning (just the same as you'll see on some systems if you try to post
to a non-existent address).  If they'd sent through their ISP's SMTP
server, they'd send it, and moments later their ISP mail system would
bounce it back to them, to their mailbox, not to someone else's address
fraudulently written in the spam's "from" field.

The notification would be of this sort:  Your message could not be
delivered, because the anti-spam system has determined the message to be
spam.  If this is not correct, you can try re-sending your message, but
in a slightly different manner.  e.g. Turn off HTML, send it as plain
text, send your message without a 20 meg file attached to it, send your
message without an executable file attached, send your message without
content similar to many spams (i.e. don't quote spam content to us),
telephone us if you are having trouble, etc.

A real person will see that, and make some adjustments and try again.
Most spammers will not see that, and not hand craft a spam for one
person in a million.  Some spammers may look at the rejection notices
that they get back, but those that are going to try again are still
going to spam you with the something that triggers the spam detection,
just about all their attempts at obfuscation are detectable.  And again,
they're not going to do this just for you, but for all their victims,
increasing the chances that anti-spam system updates will also catch
them.

>  4. I guess being a New Yorker I have a thicker skin. I have never
> gotten
>  a message from a crazy that I felt would damage my equilibrium. If one
>  appears I put him in my blacklist and he disappears. 
I'd simply rather not have to bother.  Though, at times, I've sent their
replies back to the public list.  They don't usually pull that stunt
again, on anyone.  Some even unsubscribe.

I find blacklists mostly a waste of time.  I've got to fiddle around on
more than one client, usually, and those sorts of people will change
addresses so they can continue to be a pain.  And there's a certain
level of satisfaction in hitting the delete button.


I will also respond to the following, despite your feeling about it
drifting away from topic, as it's a topic that needs occasionally
bringing up, the separation of public and private mail, in general.  It
goes beyond the two of us, at this stage it's pertinent, and I don't
think the thread has dragged on hideously (like some tangental posts
do).  Not yet, at least.  ;-)

>  The real thing is communication channels are designed to
> communicate.
>  And some communication does not belong on a public list. To tell people
>  they can't communicate with you except if they know the secret code word
>  to me is rude. I have no good examples in e-mail communication but If I
>  could e-mail you directly to give you examples why having an unlisted
>  phone number can be between disastrous to life threatening in some
>  situations. 
Since email is rarely a life and death situation, particular in this
list's case, I don't find it a compelling argument, and I only apply
that hard rule to this address, which is only used with list mail.  And,
of course, the primary communication of this list is through it.
You're, in no way, impeded from using the list in its normal way by how
my mailbox works, so no communication is prevented, that way.  I do
something similar on usenet, posting from an impossible to reply to
address (e.g. like: user(a)localhost.invalid).  Again, it doesn't impede
the group.

The signature informs people the mailbox is ignored, so they should be
able to work it out, and anybody who fires off an email without reading
the whole thing that they're responding to has other problems, or will
have.  I think someone who wanted to contact me off list would have to
be pretty stupid not to think of asking, on the list, "please contact me
off list," without me explicitly explaining that to them.  At that
point, I can accomodate them, in one way or another, or decide not to.
Just the same as I can continue any other conversation, or terminate it,
whether that be e-mail, the phone, or someone knocking on my door.  None
of us are obligated to respond, no matter what the other person thinks.
Remember that when you next see a troll, you can turn your back on them,
you are allowed to, you don't have to be polite.

Sometimes you get things that should have been on the list, and it
disadvantages everyone when some people only reply privately, even
though its not private material (e.g. they have the answer for stopping
your X from crashing, and it's information that someone else would use,
too).  I've seen forums and usenet groups where all you read are
questions, and replies saying "FAQ sent privately."  There's no useful
information to be read, there.  I like to discourage that.

I'm not sure that I'd want communication that didn't belong on a public
list, certainly not without some inkling about it.  For instance, I have
exchanged private mail with Gene about television production related
issues, but knowing about *why* beforehand.  Think of that *password* in
this manner:  You work at a shop, and you have a client that has spoken
to you a few times.  You're happy for them to contact you at work, like
we do on this list, and they can do so at their pleasure.  But you don't
give them your home number or address without a compelling reason.

It is my little bit of privacy still remaining, that I'd generally
prefer not to receive private mail.  And plenty of others prefer not to,
either.  Some find it quite confronting that posting to a list results
in some surprise private mail.  Rather like finding that shopkeeper
knocking on your door at tea time, to tell you that things would be
easier if you just did this...  Or the school bully catching up with you
after school, knowing there'll be no witnesses.  It feels like stalking.
You weren't expecting that sort of response.  For those reasons I'm
loath to contact someone privately, especially someone I hadn't already
established a rapport with.  I know some people find it quite daunting.
I think that private mail is something best kept private, or
arrangements made beforehand.

-- 
[tim@bigblack ~]$ uname -ipr
2.6.22.1-33.fc7 i686 i386

Using FC 4, 5, 6 & 7, plus CentOS 5.  Today, it's FC7.

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

Spamming the postmaster, that's a paddling...

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Aaron Konstam]

On Tue, 2007-07-31 at 02:20 +0930, Tim wrote:
>  aron Konstam:
>  > You are asking a lot form a spam filter.
>  
>  Not really, it's the computer, not me...  ;-)
>  
>  > But let me share with you this:
>  > 1. For the first time spamassassiin really works with evolution in
>  f7.
>  > I get no more that 1 spam message a week out of maybe a 1000
>  messages.
>  
>  I picked on that one as just an example, but it's the only one
>  available
>  from my various mail hosts.  As I said before, it needs to be done on
>  the server.  Else *YOU* are still getting spam (wasting storage space
>  and downloading it), and lost mail gets silently discarded or you have
>  to manually check.  And that's the problem, where it's remotely
>  installed, its not modifiable enough by me to be worth it.  
<snip>

We just have different attitudes about these things. Lets stop this
dialog and go on to other things.
--
=======================================================================
When all else fails, EAT!!!
=======================================================================
Aaron Konstam telephone: [phone] e-mail: akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[jdow]

From: "Tim" <ignored_mailbox(a)yahoo.com.au&gt;

>  Aaron Konstam:
> > You are asking a lot form a spam filter.
>  
>  Not really, it's the computer, not me...  ;-)
>  
> > But let me share with you this:
> > 1. For the first time spamassassiin really works with evolution in f7.
> > I get no more that 1 spam message a week out of maybe a 1000 messages.
>  
>  I picked on that one as just an example, but it's the only one available
>  from my various mail hosts.  As I said before, it needs to be done on
>  the server.  Else *YOU* are still getting spam (wasting storage space
>  and downloading it), and lost mail gets silently discarded or you have
>  to manually check.  And that's the problem, where it's remotely
>  installed, its not modifiable enough by me to be worth it. 
Search for "greylist". That is the technique for which you are groping.

> > 2. It is impossible to run a spam filter without checking the
> junk
> > folder since you will lose a few files that you wanted to see. Training
> > in this regard is everything.
>  
>  Yes, and no.
>  
>  You can run spam systems that do the poison bait test that I outlined,
>  and nothing more.  If anything posts to my bait address, it gets marked
>  as spam, 100% error free.  The same message posted, separately, to my
>  other accounts is identified as spam, also with 100% certainty.  Such
>  tests can be done without further care.
>  
>  You can also do other tests, giving them less certainty, but I found it
>  not necessary.  The spam I was getting was always addressed to all of my
>  contacts.  Sometimes as separate messages, sent at the same time,
>  sometimes as one message addressed to a few of them. 
That cuts down on random address spam. It does nothing for directly
addressed spam. So consider this technique as a variant on greylisting,
a technique to cut down on mailer load.

> > 3. Asking your spam filter to notify the spam senders is crazy.
> Why
> > would I want all the cialis vender's and Nigeria con men to know their
> > mail did not get through.
>  
>  You're thinking about this from just one point of view.
>  
>  Firstly, let's look at killing spam:  If it's spam, you don't want it,
>  obviously.  If you *reject* at the input stage, it's like firewalling.
>  They fail.  And it's better that they know that.  Auto spam systems can
>  give up on your address, giving the world a bit less traffic to deal
>  with.  Scattergun spammers, not caring about the response, aren't given
>  anything more useful to them than your system silently accepting their
>  spam.  They already have your address.
>  
>  Secondly, let's look at not killing non-spam (ham):  You have someone
>  trying to mail you who should be able to, but for some reason their
>  message triggers the spam detector.  If that was your long lost brother,
>  your boss telling you something important, your potential client asking
>  you something or accepting your quote, etc., and it's silently rejected,
>  you've lost out something important, perhaps permanently.  If you have
>  to check your junk mail, personally, why bother having an anti-spam
>  system in the first place?  And you might check it too late to be any
>  good.  But, if your system rejects the message, with a notification,
>  that sender has the chance to try resending it, differently, so that it
>  gets through.  Think of making phone calls; if it's busy, the caller
>  tries again; if it rings and rings, they don't know what to do; if it
>  takes a message, they expect that someone will listen to it.
>  
>  This is at the SMTP level.  It doesn't backfire onto some faked address,
>  spamming yet another person.  If they'd connected directly to your SMTP
>  server, part way through *trying* to send it'd abort and pop up a
>  warning (just the same as you'll see on some systems if you try to post
>  to a non-existent address).  If they'd sent through their ISP's SMTP
>  server, they'd send it, and moments later their ISP mail system would
>  bounce it back to them, to their mailbox, not to someone else's address
>  fraudulently written in the spam's "from" field.
>  
>  The notification would be of this sort:  Your message could not be
>  delivered, because the anti-spam system has determined the message to be
>  spam.  If this is not correct, you can try re-sending your message, but
>  in a slightly different manner.  e.g. Turn off HTML, send it as plain
>  text, send your message without a 20 meg file attached to it, send your
>  message without an executable file attached, send your message without
>  content similar to many spams (i.e. don't quote spam content to us),
>  telephone us if you are having trouble, etc.
>  
>  A real person will see that, and make some adjustments and try again.
>  Most spammers will not see that, and not hand craft a spam for one
>  person in a million.  Some spammers may look at the rejection notices
>  that they get back, but those that are going to try again are still
>  going to spam you with the something that triggers the spam detection,
>  just about all their attempts at obfuscation are detectable.  And again,
>  they're not going to do this just for you, but for all their victims,
>  increasing the chances that anti-spam system updates will also catch
>  them. 
Tim, there is no quicker way to get on my email s**t list than polluting
my mailbox with your decision process, PARTICULARLY if it involves any
mailing list messags. A proper sendmail rejection notice would result
in a bounce from my sendmail process, which I already tend to filter
out. Even so it is annoying when I get one for spurious reasons. Of course,
for spam the concept of overloading the virus victim's inbox with crap
sounce viscerally pleasing if rather pointless. He'll never figure out
why he's getting all that nonsense about rejected emails he never sent.

Treat email as an analog to snail mail. So your mailbox overflows with
<censored>. You keep a trash bucket next to the mailbox and drop the
obvious junk as you pull it out - you abort the sendmail transaction.
Then you perform secondary filtering - bulk rate mail from unknown
address gets shredded and disposed of without opening it. (procmail
can do this.) You also check the first line or two of the doubtful
snail mails, very few by this point, and chuck the spams (spamassassin
with procmail for the chucking). Then you take it into the house.

Automated scanning is not as good as human scanning. So you have the
automation provide you with a score that can easily sort emails by the
quality of the spam assertion. You check the doubtful ones.

As it happens I load an otherwise idle firewall machine with the email
checks. And I get angry if I get one spam a week make it through, out of
around 75 to 100 spams a day (down from a much higher number for reasons
I don't understand.) That's out of about 700 to 1000 emails a day - this
list, FreeBSD, and LKML are VERY busy lists. {^_-}

> > 4. I guess being a New Yorker I have a thicker skin. I have never
> gotten
> > a message from a crazy that I felt would damage my equilibrium. If one
> > appears I put him in my blacklist and he disappears.
>  
>  I'd simply rather not have to bother.  Though, at times, I've sent their
>  replies back to the public list.  They don't usually pull that stunt
>  again, on anyone.  Some even unsubscribe.
>  
>  I find blacklists mostly a waste of time.  I've got to fiddle around on
>  more than one client, usually, and those sorts of people will change
>  addresses so they can continue to be a pain.  And there's a certain
>  level of satisfaction in hitting the delete button.
>  
>  
>  I will also respond to the following, despite your feeling about it
>  drifting away from topic, as it's a topic that needs occasionally
>  bringing up, the separation of public and private mail, in general.  It
>  goes beyond the two of us, at this stage it's pertinent, and I don't
>  think the thread has dragged on hideously (like some tangental posts
>  do).  Not yet, at least.  ;-) 
If you are dealing with more than one modest modern family your problems
are quite different from mine. You face the serious problem that what
I might consider to be ham would be spam for someone else. And some people
are kinky and like "those kind of spams". BUT - any company that has the
temerity to simply toss "dubious spam" headed my way is one I cannot use
for email. When serving a lot of people do consider greylisting. That is
an astoundingly effective technique, normally speaking. Also run only very
conservative spamassassin rule lists and block lists via spamassassin. If
you use block lists in sendmail then arrange to use several with a scoring
mechanism based on their historical goodness at your location.

{^_^}

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Tim]

jdow:
>  Search for "greylist". That is the technique for which you
> are groping. 
Already know of it, and the delays involved with it put it out of the
equation, for me.  Waiting hours for an business email that you need in
mere moments makes it completely untenable.  Nevermind ignoring what I'd
already said:  My mail is hosted externally, and I'm limited in options.

Aaron Konstam:
> >> 2. It is impossible to run a spam filter without checking the
> junk
> >> folder since you will lose a few files that you wanted to see. Training
> >> in this regard is everything. 
Tim:
> > Yes, and no.
> > 
> > You can run spam systems that do the poison bait test that I outlined,
> > and nothing more.  If anything posts to my bait address, it gets marked
> > as spam, 100% error free.  The same message posted, separately, to my
> > other accounts is identified as spam, also with 100% certainty.  Such
> > tests can be done without further care.
> > 
> > You can also do other tests, giving them less certainty, but I found it
> > not necessary.  The spam I was getting was always addressed to all of my
> > contacts.  Sometimes as separate messages, sent at the same time,
> > sometimes as one message addressed to a few of them. 
>  That cuts down on random address spam. It does nothing for directly
>  addressed spam. So consider this technique as a variant on greylisting,
>  a technique to cut down on mailer load. 
Actually, it did, for me.  Once a spammer hit the bait address, that
type of message was identified as being spam.  It didn't matter how they
addressed their other spams, they were predetermined as spam, as well.

I was targeting my solution at my problem (currently the same spam
targetted at all my addresses, and others that just targeted my bait
address), it was good enough for me.

Actually, it *is* completely possible to completely ignore checking a
junk folder.  If your anti-spam system refuses entry to spam, at the
SMTP level, there is no junk folder.  It's up to rejected recipients to
resend, in an altered manner.  Most genuine posters won't hit that spam
filter.  The only thing you're left with to check is false negatives.

>  Tim, there is no quicker way to get on my email s**t list than
> polluting
>  my mailbox with your decision process, 
Physician, heal thyself!  You're one for continually, and extremely
forcefully, promoting your technique of doing something as the only way
worth bothering.  You topped my list of annoying people on this list,
for that reason, long ago.  And you've just hit the list with your own
long list of mailbox handling decisions.

>  As it happens I load an otherwise idle firewall machine with the
> email
>  checks. And I get angry if I get one spam a week make it through, out of
>  around 75 to 100 spams a day (down from a much higher number for reasons
>  I don't understand.) That's out of about 700 to 1000 emails a day - this
>  list, FreeBSD, and LKML are VERY busy lists. {^_-} 
Out of my usual 200+ messages a day, I see about 6-8 spams (very easily
managable with the delete key), and no false positives.  I think my
techniques are working rather well, for me.  I see no point in jumping
through hoops to implement other anti-spam methods at this point.

-- 
[tim@bigblack ~]$ uname -ipr
2.6.22.1-33.fc7 i686 i386

Using FC 4, 5, 6 & 7, plus CentOS 5.  Today, it's FC7.

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[jdow]

From: "Aaron Konstam" <akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net&gt;

>  On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 19:40 +0930, Tim wrote:
> > 
> > In my experience, it's rather bad.  I see quite a few false positives,
> > and a lot of spam getting through.  It can be trained better, but
> > that's
> > hard for me to do if I run it where it needs to be run - on the
> > (remote)
> > mailserver, hosted by someone else who only give me limited control.
> > Most of the un-marked spam that I see rarely has enough points to
> > qualify, so it's hard to train effectively, anyway.  I've yet to see a
> > hosted mail server doing spam assassin well.  There probably are some
> > expensive ones that manage it, but I'm not going to use an expensive
> > mail service.
> > 
> > This is a fundamental issue with using something like spam assassin:
> > 
> > It needs to be run on the SMTP server, as an INPUT filter, so that
> > spam
> > gets refused before entry, with a notification as part of the SMTP
> > transaction.  That way, the sender (the actual sender, not just the
> > address in the "from" header) gets notified that the message wasn't
> > accepted, and a genuine sender can try again in a manner that doesn't
> > get rejected (e.g. without HTML, or an attachment, or other things).
> > Otherwise, if they're not told, they think you got their mail, and
> > they
> > didn't.  That's a serious problem if you try to conduct any business
> > through e-mail.
> > 
> > If you run it locally, your external SMTP server has already accepted
> > the mail, it's too late to reject it.  People who mailed you and
> > accidentally got filtered out as spam have no idea.  And, you have to
> > filter a lot of mail yourself.  Not to mention havi thng to check the
> > junk
> > mailbox, yourself, which defeats the purpose of running an anti-spam
> > system.  
>  You are asking a lot form a spam filter. But let me share with you
> this:
>  1. For the first time spamassassiin really works with evolution in f7.
>  I get no more that 1 spam message a week out of maybe a 1000 messages. 
I always suspected you of masochism, Aaron. {^_-} Don't use it as a
filter inside an MDA. Use it via fetchmail, procmail, and dovecot. You
do not perceive the 2 to 5 seconds SA spends scanning the messages that
way. And that makes it easier to live with.

>  2. It is impossible to run a spam filter without checking the junk
>  folder since you will lose a few files that you wanted to see. Training
>  in this regard is everything. 
It is quite possible to do it. It is foolish to do it if there is a
chance that you will get some very important but spammish looking
email. A quick check for false alarms with SA scoring setup to report
up to three digits of score in the marked up subject line allows for
a VERY quick search by sorting the subjects.

rewrite_header Subject     *****SPAM***** _SCORE(00)_ **

>  3. Asking your spam filter to notify the spam senders is crazy. Why
>  would I want all the cialis vender's and Nigeria con men to know their
>  mail did not get through. 
Bluntly put a SendMail level rejection is fine but anything that goes
to the "From:" line WILL get your address block listed as a spam site.

>  4. I guess being a New Yorker I have a thicker skin. I have never
> gotten
>  a message from a crazy that I felt would damage my equilibrium. If one
>  appears I put him in my blacklist and he disappears. 
Heh, those guys go on my .procmailrc /dev/null list. Why waste any more
CPU cycles on them than necessary? {^_-}

>  The real thing is communication channels are designed to
> communicate.
>  And some communication does not belong on a public list. To tell people
>  they can't communicate with you except if they know the secret code word
>  to me is rude. I have no good examples in e-mail communication but If I
>  could e-mail you directly to give you examples why having an unlisted
>  phone number can be between disastrous to life threatening in some
>  situations. 
When I get a bounce for a challenge/response or for a missing magic word
that address goes into my /dev/null list so I don't get bothered again.
That is where a certain misbehaving major service in Brazil finds a lot
of its mail going.

>  But since I can't communicate with you off the list lets drop
> the
>  subject. 
Better yet - /dev/null the nonsense.

{^_-}

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Aaron Konstam]

On Tue, 2007-07-31 at 19:26 -0700, jdow wrote:
>  From: "Aaron Konstam" <akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net&gt;
>  
>  > On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 19:40 +0930, Tim wrote:
>  >> 
>  >> In my experience, it's rather bad.  I see quite a few false
>  positives,
>  >> and a lot of spam getting through.  It can be trained better, but
>  >> that's
>  >> hard for me to do if I run it where it needs to be run - on the
>  >> (remote)
>  >> mailserver, hosted by someone else who only give me limited
>  control.
>  >> Most of the un-marked spam that I see rarely has enough points to
>  >> qualify, so it's hard to train effectively, anyway.  I've yet to
>  see a
>  >> hosted mail server doing spam assassin well.  There probably are
>  some
>  >> expensive ones that manage it, but I'm not going to use an
>  expensive
>  >> mail service.
>  >> 
>  >> This is a fundamental issue with using something like spam
>  assassin:
>  >> 
>  >> It needs to be run on the SMTP server, as an INPUT filter, so that
>  >> spam
>  >> gets refused before entry, with a notification as part of the SMTP
>  >> transaction.  That way, the sender (the actual sender, not just the
>  >> address in the "from" header) gets notified that the message
> wasn't
>  >> accepted, and a genuine sender can try again in a manner that
>  doesn't
>  >> get rejected (e.g. without HTML, or an attachment, or other
>  things).
>  >> Otherwise, if they're not told, they think you got their mail, and
>  >> they
>  >> didn't.  That's a serious problem if you try to conduct any
>  business
>  >> through e-mail.
>  >> 
>  >> If you run it locally, your external SMTP server has already
>  accepted
>  >> the mail, it's too late to reject it.  People who mailed you and
>  >> accidentally got filtered out as spam have no idea.  And, you have
>  to
>  >> filter a lot of mail yourself.  Not to mention havi thng to check
>  the
>  >> junk
>  >> mailbox, yourself, which defeats the purpose of running an
>  anti-spam
>  >> system. 
>  
>  > You are asking a lot form a spam filter. But let me share with you
>  this:
>  > 1. For the first time spamassassiin really works with evolution in
>  f7.
>  > I get no more that 1 spam message a week out of maybe a 1000
>  messages.
>  
>  I always suspected you of masochism, Aaron. {^_-} Don't use it as a
>  filter inside an MDA. Use it via fetchmail, procmail, and dovecot. You
>  do not perceive the 2 to 5 seconds SA spends scanning the messages
>  that
>  way. And that makes it easier to live with.
>   
Joanne,
I would agree with you with evolution on versions before f7. But under
f7 spam checking under evolution works like a "house on fire". And it is
somewhat simpler then dealing with 2 or three other programs just to get
the spam checking done.

As far as checking spam for false identifications your system may work
but the dependence on the spam value as an indicator of real spaminess
is a little too speculative for me. Although, theoretically you would
think it might work,
--
=======================================================================
Comparing software engineering to classical engineering assumes that
software has the ability to wear out. Software typically behaves, or it
does not. It either works, or it does not. Software generally does not
degrade, abrade, stretch, twist, or ablate. To treat it as a physical
entity, therefore, is misapplication of our engineering skills.
Classical engineering deals with the characteristics of hardware;
software engineering should deal with the characteristics of *software*,
and not with hardware or management. -- Dan Klein
=======================================================================
Aaron Konstam telephone: [phone] e-mail: akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Howard Howell]

On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 19:40 +0930, Tim wrote:

>  There's a few other pains that are near the top of my mailing
> list
>  aggrevations, too:  People sending vacation auto-replies to lists with
>  hundreds of members.  People using a challenge/reponse anti-spam system
>  on their mailing list subscriptions.  Those who do those stupid things
>  deserve a few hundred replies back from the list members.  I belive the
>  traditional Unix response is a multi-megabyte core dump.
>   
Perhaps in colleges or other places where people who are not mature
congregate such actions may be deemed proper, but in here???

Lets not get our knickers in a knot.  This is a public forum and we
would like it to remain so.  Please keep such tendencies to yourself.

Regards,
Les H

spam avoidance (was Re: cpu speed problem)

[Tim]

Tim:
> > There's a few other pains that are near the top of my mailing
> list
> > aggrevations, too:  People sending vacation auto-replies to lists with
> > hundreds of members.  People using a challenge/reponse anti-spam system
> > on their mailing list subscriptions.  Those who do those stupid things
> > deserve a few hundred replies back from the list members.  I belive the
> > traditional Unix response is a multi-megabyte core dump. 
Les:
>  Perhaps in colleges or other places where people who are not mature
>  congregate such actions may be deemed proper, but in here???
>  
>  Lets not get our knickers in a knot.  This is a public forum and we
>  would like it to remain so.  Please keep such tendencies to yourself. 
I make the core dump comment more in jest, than anything else.  And, I
suspect, that most people probably couldn't do it without some reading,
first.

However, someone so daft as to send such notices to a list with several
hundred members does deserve finding their mailbox stuffed full of
several hundred replies.

-- 
[tim@bigblack ~]$ uname -ipr
2.6.22.1-33.fc7 i686 i386

Using FC 4, 5, 6 & 7, plus CentOS 5.  Today, it's FC7.

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

[Andy Green]

Somebody in the thread at some point said:

>  So what are you suggesting. That when I run the laptop on power I
> remove
>  the battery. 
Modern L-ion batteries have their own private "gas gauge" using ICs like
this:

http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/landing/impedancetrack/index.htm?DCMP=hpa_pmp...

Despite the laptop is powered, it doesn't mean it is charging or doing
anything with the battery at all, consistent with what it is being told
about the battery state by the battery itself.

-Andy

[Howard Howell]

On Sun, 2007-07-29 at 08:25 -0500, Aaron Konstam wrote:
>  On Sun, 2007-07-29 at 19:03 +0930, Tim wrote:
>  > Tim: 
>  > >> It's generally a good idea to make use of rechargable batteries - run
>  > >> the device they're meant for, using the batteries, from time to time.
>  > >> Quite apart from the technical reasons, of keeping the batteries
>  > >> alive, there's not much point owning them (and paying for them) if you
>  > >> don't make use of them. 
>  > 
>  > Aaron Konstam: 
>  > > Au contraire , there is lots o reasons. One is when I am running the
>  > > machine at home for 3 hours with a battery that runs it for 2 hrs and 14
>  > > minutes. On DELL D810 it is designed to run that way so why not?
>  > 
>  > I'm not quite sure what you're disagreeing with.
>  > 
>  > One of my points was that I don't see much sense in paying for a battery
>  > if you're not going to use it as a battery, they're not cheap.  That
>  > doesn't mean you have to use it all the time, but using some times would
>  > do it good.
>  > 
>  > Batteries generally last the best when made use of.  Ones that sit there
>  > unused, or always being charged, usually suffer.  Ones that sit in
>  > equipment are often slightly discharging through the equipment, and
>  > being trickled charged, constantly.  Consider yourself lucky if yours is
>  > fine in those conditions.
>  > 
>  > Chargers are *sometimes* are fine to leave connected, as *some* are
>  > designed *not* to keep on charging a battery needlessly.  Others are not
>  > so intelligently designed.  (Whether that be the box you plug into the
>  > wall, or circuitry in the laptop between battery and the power brick.)
>  > 
>  > Some laptops are not really good to run continuously, they may have not
>  > so brilliant cooling.  They may use a laptop drive that's been designed
>  > to last being turned on and off a lot, but not so much for continuous
>  > running.  The opposite of most desktop drives.
>  > 
>  > There's a multitude  f factors, and it's hard to say what's best for
>  > some, it's even harder to attempt to say what's best for all.
>  > 
>  I have  a terrible urge to send replies to your private address even if
>  they are rejected. 
>  
>  So what are you suggesting. That when I run the laptop on power I remove
>  the battery. Well here is my didactic statement for the day. I would not
>  buy a laptop that could not be run on wall power even if the battery is
>  installed. I always thought Toshiba made high class laptops. If I found
>  my Toshiba laptop needed to have the battery removed when I ran it on
>  wall power I would sell it the next day. Would you buy a cell phone that
>  did not stop charging when the battery was fully charged. I would not.
>  We are in the 21th century and we know how to construct a device with a
>  battery that works correctly.
>  -- 
Unfortunately, Aaron, no one knows how to defeat the basic physics that
make batteries work.  Each form of battery has its own quirks, and the
longest lasting ones and most robust are phosphate based lithium ion.
And they appear to have a charge cycle rating of about 10000 (about 10x
a lead acid battery and about 3x that of a nimh.)  The purity of the
materials, the physical construction, and the form of interaction that
charges and discharges the battery all have effects that limit the life
in one form or another.  Chargers are all designed to put current
through the battery, which with luck and proper design reverses the
chemical reaction, resulting in charging.  Some of that energy is lost
in heat, in building internal fields, in fighting the resistance of the
materials in the battery and connections, so the process is lossy, and
generates heat in ways that are also limiting to the battery's
operation.  In short nothing lasts forever.  There are very good
tutorials on the Trojan Battery website: http://www.trojan-battery.com/

And here is the link to the Wikipedia entry about nimh:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_metal_hydride_battery

And from the Wikipedia, the reference for DuraCell NiMH:
http://www.duracell.com/oem/rechargeable/Nickel/nickel_metal_tech.asp

Another source, for the lithium phosphate technology is:
http://www.valence.com/

Note that the Valence technology is a relative newcomer and quite
expensive, but it is literally the bulletproof battery, and you can read
on their website about why shorts do not affect them and see the
photograph and test results of a bullet penetrated battery.

In short all battery have batteries have two major limitations: aging
reducing capacity and cycle lifetime, typically rated at the 50%
capacity life.  With daily cycling the goal is currently 3 years, with
most batteries reaching two or slightly longer.  
Continuously charging a battery develops a "memory" of shallow
discharge, which shortens both cycle life and capacity.

Hope this helps you understand the technical issues.

Regards,
Les H