[Mailman-Users] Allowing users to join without specifying pas swords

Chuq Von Rospach chuqui at plaidworks.com
Fri Jun 15 19:58:55 CEST 2001


On Friday, June 15, 2001, at 10:10 AM, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:

> I'm not so concerned about security.  I figure that if we're crafting
> a message for UserA, we can generate a unique url for that user to
> click on to unsubscribe.  Sure someone could intercept the email (and
> probably does ;), but we're not opening any more holes than already
> exist by doing this.

this requires physical/virtual access to that person's mailbox. and if 
someone has access to that, the poor schmuck's list subscriptions are 
the least of his problems... (grin)

> The biggest hangup I've had with this approach is that it requires
> Mailman to send N number of messages to the MTA, where N is the number
> of members, as opposed to the currently 1 message it now sends (modulo
> chunking factors).
>
> That's always seemed a big pill to swallow,

Is it really? Most of us are already setting that chunking factor very 
small (5-10) for performance purposes. Moving it from 10 to 1 isn't 
really all that significant, and it's only an issue where people are 
already stressing server or network capacity. It seems to me that 
server's in trouble anyway, as membership grows, so all you're doing is 
delaying reality.

And besides. Are we here to make life easy for the server? or the 
subscriber?

I think this attitude is a hangover from the days of uucp dialups and 
slow modems, Barry. it's time to realize that computers are cheap, 
compared to time lost by the people using them and the hassle they cause 
to the users.


--
Chuq Von Rospach, Internet Gnome <http://www.chuqui.com>
[<chuqui at plaidworks.com> = <me at chuqui.com> = <chuq at apple.com>]
Yes, yes, I've finally finished my home page. Lucky you.

Any connection between your reality and mine
is purely coincidental.






More information about the Mailman-Users mailing list