[Mailman-Users] privacy problem with mailman archives ?

[J C Lawrence]

On Sat, 05 Feb 2000 01:37:49 +0000 
Rachel Willmer <rachel at intertrader.com> wrote:

> Looking at the public archives for the mailing list I've just
> created, it seems that there's a privacy problem.

Its wirth noting that there are good reasons to not protect such
email addresses against harvesting.  eg:

  Am I going to let spammers dicate to me how I comport myself on
  the net?  Am I going to give them that much importance and power
  over me?

> The archives display the email addresses of the senders in a
> spam-readable format, which would make it very easy for a robot to
> pick off the names of anyone who's posted to my list.

There are very few such web page harvesters any more as many site
have set up CGI traps (essentially infinitely recursive web pages
that trap spiders), or pages which are salted with large numbers of
dynamically generated bogus addresses (which spoil the collected
data).

> Is there an option I've missed that obfusticates the email
> addresses of posters addresses in the archives, in the same way
> that the addresses in the list of subscribers can be spam-proofed
> ?

Look under Privacy Options.

-- 
J C Lawrence                                 Home: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                              Other: coder at kanga.nu
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--