On Wednesday, May 30, 2001, at 02:31 PM, J C Lawrence wrote:
> What I ___*REALLY*___ want is to hook up MHonArc to an SQL backend
> for archive message storage with all the thread links stored in
> under SQL.
Me -- I've sort of decided at some point to throw mhonarc out
completely, because from what I've seen, it'd be a lot cheaper
computationally to stuff it all in a database, and generate index pages
and data pages on the fly than it is to have mhonarc update the indexes
and everything every time we insert a message in case a user might want
to visit before the next insertion...
this seems like a wonderful place to put a database-driven dynamic
system and to stop pre-generation pages that get generated 10 times or
more for every access... I just have other priorites right now, like my
front yard and my woodshop. But you could get a search engine more or
less for free, too, and save having to build all that technology,
indexes and etc...
And I keep telling myself it's not THAT much work, which is my hint to
go lie down in a dark room until the impulse passes...
> I've toyed with rondomly varying the above pattern across a variety
> of replacement characters/strings, but haven't yet.
my problem with munging addresses is that any attempt to mung in some
standardized way (or one of a few more or less standard variants) is
just as easy for the spambots to unmung. And if you randomize it against
the bots, you confuse the newbies. But if you stuff it all in a database
and force people to access it, you have some chance of controlling it.
>> if they're grabbing them from the master archive.
>
> ATM that's impossible for me as I don't provide the archive messages
> in any raw format.
the only reason my users complain is lack of a working search engine,
which I'm working on. But it's enough to cause private archives to
spring up, and since I understand why, I try to be reaosnable about it,
within reason.
>> It wouldn't solve folks who generate archives directly from the
>> mail list deliveries, though. Unless you wanted ot munch all
>> e-mail addresses in all cases, and we don't want to go there.
>
> Quite. That's rather too invasive.
Yah.
I'm of firm belief that the archives need to be secured from spammers
and trolls -- but there's no reason to be MORE secure than the list
itself is. That concept of "more secure" has led to all sorts of
discussions, because for some reason many people seem to think lists are
inherently secure from spammers, so all of the hacking has to come from
the archives, which must be provably safe... Of course, that's false --
and barring personally vetting every subscriber, if a spammer really
wants my addresses, they'll get them, and I can't stop them. I sort of
view archive security as "the Club" for addresses -- convince the
spammer to go bother someone else who's easier to steal from...
--
Chuq Von Rospach, Internet Gnome <http://www.chuqui.com>
[<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> = <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> = <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
Yes, yes, I've finally finished my home page. Lucky you.
I wish I could say your enthusiasm was contagious...
