~~~snipping~~~
> While it is true that aliasing issues would exist regardless of the
> free/anonymous services, these third party alias providers make the task
> of tracking down abusers that much more difficult. Privacy issues prevent
> the alias providers from disclosing useful information, and while they may
> be responsive as far as shutting down an account, that is of little
> consolation when the offending party can simply register yet another alias
> and start over. I would like to see the alias provider to pass my
> complaint on to the offender's ISP (whomever is responsible for the IP
> address that the offender was using when he registered and/or made changes
> to the alias account), but I somehow doubt that will happen.
Very rarely does happen in my experience. Usually that complaint
just gets ignored. <sigh>
> The other other list admins and I (as well as the network admins for the
> network that hosts the box that the list server runs on) have discussed
> banning known anonymous mail relays and other problem sites from
> subscribing to the list, for this and other reasons. I'm already the
> admin for other lists that have had a more restrictive subscription policy
> for a long time... often they require a questionnaire be completed before
> they can subscribe. It may be inconvenient, but it seems to help. Anyone
> have any thoughts about this?
We've just decided to implement an "interview" process ourselves for
remail addresses and certain ISP's, as well as running
'closed+confirm" of course. All remail sub's have to provide a
legitimate, confirmable, ISP address which admin. keeps confidential
from the rest of the members. If those who want to subscribe using a
remailler don't like any of the process, then we figure our list wouldn't
be the place for them to feel at home anyway.
The simplest solution of course would be to ban all remail subscribes.
But we're a support list for a group of very nervous people and don't
want to cut off access to anyone in need. And many people use their
work computers and are worried to bits about their employers finding
out. So if they're willing to go through the somewhat tedious checks
to get subbed, at least we can get them subscribed.
Mally :)
