Re: [Thinkpad] Mailing list as possible channel for spambots.

The problem, IMHO, with not showing the real email address, is twofold:
1. As has happened before, when you do a reply all, you get bounced mail
2. It turns you into a detective if you are trying to respond to someone
directly.
Personally when people email me with anti-spam address and my return mail
bounces, I generally just delete it an ignore any future mail
Just my .02
Spam is a royal pain, but you can always delete it. Anyone want a free flat
screen or Dell laptop?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Bell" <RobDBell@mailworks.org>
To: "ThinkPad Mailing List" <thinkpad@stderr.org>
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 1:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Thinkpad] Mailing list as possible channel for spambots.

> I've posted occasionally with this e-mail address and I don't get much
> spam at all with it. Maybe one every other week. I don't think that
> any spammers have wasted their time harvesting the addresses off this
> list. They probably spend their time looking at really large lists with
> thousands of people or servers with many, many lists.
>
> That being said, you idea for address munging is reasonable. I guess
> only Elijah can tell us if his mail list software can do such a thing.
>
> Your best bet for eliminating spam is to just be careful where you give
> out your e-mail address. If you're using it to fill out web forms at
> tons of businesses and stuff or if the address is present on some web
> pages somewhere then it is more likely to be harvested. Giving it out
> to a limited number of known and trusted companies and mailing lists is
> low risk.
>
> Rob
>
> Michael Edwards wrote:
>
> > I am getting spam seriously more often than before, and I am
considering
> > changing my e-mail address because of this.
> > I'm concerned that one of the ways spammers may be getting my
e-mail
> > address might be from mailing lists such as this one, which have
publicly
> > available archives, which also display posters' e-mail addresses,
undisguised.
> > I am also planning to buy a new laptop and change to the Linux
operating
> > system. I don't know whether the new laptop will be a ThinkPad or not,
so I
> > don't know if I will remain on this list. But if I do, the spam problem
will
> > continue to be an inhibiting factor.
> > Is there any way of posting to this list so that your e-mail
address is
> > displayed only in some munged form? I don't actively want to hide my
e-mail
> > address from *humans*, and am quite happy to be reachable to anyone
wanting to
> > write to me for legitimate reasons; I just want to stop the spambots
reading it
> > correctly. However, if hiding my e-mail address altogether and using
just a
> > name were the only way of doing it, I would consider doing that.
> > If disguising an e-mail address is not possible on the part of
users, would
> > it be possible to configure the mailing list as a whole to display only
munged
> > versions of e-mail addresses? (I suppose, in this case, the munged form
of
> > address would have to be user-chosen, because, if it were done in some
standard
> > way, the programmers of spambots would presumably learn how to program
the
> > spambots to read the munged forms.)
> > I've never actually heard of this being possible, which, when I
think about
> > it, I find very surprising. The need for this facility on mailing
lists,
> > bulletin boards, and other public forums, will, I suspect, become
absolutely
> > imperative before too much longer - or else it seems to me that e-mail
will
> > itself become quite unviable.
> > Anyway, if anyone can please make suggestions on this, I would be
grateful,
> > since, when I change e-mail addresses, I wish to make a fresh start with
regard
> > to keeping spam out.
> > Thank you.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Michael Edwards.
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Thinkpad mailing list
> > Thinkpad@stderr.org
> > http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad
> _______________________________________________
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Received on Mon Aug 23 13:18:14 2004