[Mailman-Users] FW: Your confirmation is required to leave the Mailman-Users mailing list

[Peter Shute]

Thanks, that's most likely the answer. I've never thought to remove them other than to tidy up the message, and on some of the mail clients I use, it's so much effort that I don't bother.

I looked at messages from a couple of other mailman lists I'm on, and they don't have the unsubscribe link, so that explains why it hasn't happen with those.

Peter Shute 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mailman-Users 
> [mailto:mailman-users-bounces+pshute=nuw.org.au at python.org] 
> On Behalf Of Mark Sapiro
> Sent: Tuesday, 17 February 2015 9:17 AM
> To: mailman-users at python.org
> Subject: Re: [Mailman-Users] FW: Your confirmation is 
> required to leave the Mailman-Users mailing list
> 
> On 02/16/2015 12:48 PM, Peter Shute wrote:
> > This is the second time I've received one of these. I'm 
> told the only way one of these could be generated is if 
> there's a URL published out there that does this when a bot 
> crawls it, or if someone deliberately tried to unsubscribe me.
> 
> 
> There's another scenario that's more likely. See, e.g. the 
> post at 
> <https://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2014-October/
077947.html>.
> 
> In this post, you quote a prior post which you received from 
> the list and from which you did not remove the list footers 
> including an 'Unsubscribe' link to your user options page.
> 
> This sends your 'Unsubscribe' link to every list member and 
> in turn some of these recipients forward it who knows where.
> 
> Ultimately, someone receives it and thinks she wants to 
> unsubscribe from what ever is sending her these, follows the 
> link to your options page and clicks the Unsubscribe button 
> on that page.
> 
> Spiders won't do this because even though they will follow 
> the link to your options login page, they won't post the 
> form, but people who receive that message directly or indirectly will.
> 
> Always remove list footers from quoted material before 
> replying (if your MUA doesn't do it automatically), and this 
> scenario can't happen.