September

How Riseup fights Spam

The Internet seems to have turned a corner, and the volume of worldwide Spam has started to decrease, slightly. Please, may this trend continue!

Despite this improvement, the Riseup birds still spend way too much time thinking about Spam… so that you don’t have to.

Our crack team of Spam fighters have erected three layers of Spam defense:

(1) Realtime Block Lists: Realtime Block Lists (RBLs) are frequently updated lists of computers which are known to send spam. We use these lists to block email from those spammers. If you try to send an email to riseup.net and it gets rejected because of an RBL, you will see a link in the rejection notice which will lead you to a website with details about the reason for the listing in an RBL. There are good RBLs and bad RBLs: we only use the most reputable ones.

(2) Spamassassin: Riseup uses spamassassin to help fight spam. Spamassassin uses a complex set of algorithms to determine if incoming mail is Spam. This process consumes a huge amount of our computing resource.

(3) Customizable Spam Filtering: As our final line of defense, we allow you to customize the spam settings for your account. If the statistical filter is also turned on, it will learn and adapt over time based. For more information about how to customize these settings, you should head over to our help pages, https://help.riseup.net/spam

Security reminder from the help desk #689

When using a shared computer, always remember to logout. This is very important, and very easy to do. This is particularly important when using a public computer. Don’t leave your computer unlocked and unattended.

Avoid public computers: this can be difficult. If you do use a public computer, consider changing your password often or using the virtual keyboard link (if you use riseup.net for your web-mail). The virtual keyboard allows you to use your mouse to enter your password instead of a keyboard to protect you from keyloggers.

if you share a computer with friends, create multiple logins which keep user settings separate. You should enable this feature, and logout or “lock” the computer when not in use.

Canary reminder

We have a Canary. Sadly, it is not a real canary with yellow feathers, but a Warrant Canary with an OpenPGP signature. If you don’t know what a Canary is you can read more about it here: https://canarywatch.org/faq.html (only in english).

You can check Riseup’s Canary here: https://help.riseup.net/canary (only in english).

News from the collective

We have added two new members to the flock! As one might imagine, we are a bit of an insular and paranoid crew being radicals who know their history, know their tech, and see clearly the way surveillance tentacles are extending into everything.

So, to say that we are thrilled to welcome two new members to the collective, is also to say that we are welcoming two completely wonderful people who have been comrades for many years.

The black-collared jay (Cyanolyca armillata) has spent most of his life documenting the new generation of grassroot activism in pacific south. He likes to learn new things, including computer related stuff, which is why he is able to help with riseup’s tech work. The jay is known for being a rabbit friendly bird, skeptical about mobile design trends and for disliking to write names with capital letters. He avoids technologies that use jewelry names.

The Eurasian blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) is easily recognizable by its blue plumage, but various authorities dispute their scientific classification. While studying, it traveled through Europe to counter summits, social forums and the like. After university it was looking for a communal roosting in the web. So it started to work on crabgrass and we.riseup.net. A few years ago it stopped migrating and now nests in a small town commune.

What else? Feral Rock Pigeon has been publishing e-books about Morgan Le Fay fighting crime in Seattle. The Fay Morgan Chronicles are less overtly anarchist than much of her work, though still totally anarchist she thinks/she hopes.

And, Sunbird is starting a solo law practice focusing on keeping immigrant families together and fighting the unjust U.S. immigration system. Huzzah!

We are busy birds, as I am sure you are, too.

Money!

Do you have a lot or maybe a little extra and want to put it toward social movement infrastructure? Well, we have a great little technology collective with big dreams and wild skills that we’d love you to put it toward.

Please visit: https://riseup.net/en/donate