Subject: [TOOLS-DEVELOPMENT] Mailman subscribe attacks - a new twist
From: Glen <[email-masked]>
To: Glen Barney <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2015 07:22:23 -0700
List-Id: Tools Development list server <tools-development.ietf.org>

Greetings again:

Loa is reporting that on his list he is now getting subscribe attacks for
email-to-SMS gateway addresses.  He reports that he's received about 20 of
the following types of subscribe requests in the last day:

[email-masked]

Obviously, flooding cell phones with junk mail is much more invasive than
random GMail addresses.  Since this attack targets a US-based carrier, I
have applied the same divert-to-secretariat behavior to addresses
containing the four primary US cellular carrier domains:

txt.att.net
mms.att.net
vtext.com
tmomail.net
sprintpcs.com

I did a check, and we have exactly zero users on any of our lists in any of
these domains.  (Which makes sense, most IETF list messages are far too
long to deal with over SMS.)  I therefore expect that this additional step
will have no impact on the community.

As an aside, an interesting, if incomplete, resource for gateway addresses
is here:  http://www.emailtextmessages.com/

I obviously do not intend to apply diversion to all of the domains in their
list, but I include it just for interest.

As always, any questions, let me know!

Glen
Glen Barney
IT Director
AMS (IETF Secretariat)