[Mailman-Users] what gives?

[Mark Sapiro]

sea23 at seasalt.org wrote:
>
>The fact that at least 4 people from this list have already responded 
>that they too have gotten that same mailman confirm email from that 
>domain/list at about the time, as they recall, that they first 
>subscribed here and made their first post leaves no doubt at this point 
>that there is a connection.


I'm still a bit more skeptical at this point than "no doubt", but I'm
open to the idea.


>Again, I think they are simply identifying 
>first time posters to this list (and possibly other lists) and then 
>firing off a confirm email to them, probably in order to advertise their 
>site rather than to get anyone to join their mailing list.

If by "firing off a confirm", you mean attempting to subscribe them to
the list which then triggers a confirmation, I think this seems likely.

So what do we have.

Someone is somehow watching this public list and getting addresses of
(some, all?) first time posters to this list and attempting to
subscribe those addresses to some other list.

There doesn't seem to be any security issue here. as this list is
public and anyone can subscribe to it or visit its archive. The fact
that both this list and the target list are Mailman lists may be
relevant in some way (in the mind of the perpetrator), but it doesn't
imply a Mailman issue. The annoyance factor is minimal. You get the
confirmation and ignore it. Nothing further happens.

The fact is when you post to a public forum such as this one, you are
publishing your e-mail address to the world and you have no control
over what's done with it. If you don't like it, don't post or post
from an anonymous, disposable address.

It doesn't seem to me that there is any security issue, Mailman issue
or other issue here that we as a group can do anything about.

--
Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan