On Mon, Oct 10, 20057:44 PM, the following words from Michael Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED], emerged from a plethora of SPAM ...
>One more time: The archive that is proposed REMOVES email addresses. You >would receive no spam from it. Well, there is a BIG difference between an archive that has been PROPOSED and one that already EXISTS that publicly displays email messages containing email addresses of the members. There is no need for you to be offensive or rude. You don't know everything to judge whether people are being paranoid if you weren't the person directly involved. If you've had no problems, then I'm happy for you. I'm happy for anyone that doesn't have any problems with mailing lists and forums and a flood of spam and identity theft. >>I didn't know the list was going to become a public list, or I would have >>unsubscribed a while back. >As was said before anyone can join this list by just sending an email >address. No one is screened. It already is, therefore, public. I've joined a lot of mailing lists that are not publicly archived just by sending my email address. The process one must undergo to join a mailing list has nothing to do with the archives of that mailing list being public or not. I've joined many yahoo groups where all I had to do was submit my email address and yet the archives of the messages of that list still remain private; for viewing by members ONLY. I avoid forums where the list is readable by non-members even though Yahoo does strip all email addresses. I've also joined many lists where I only submitted my email address and those lists have always been considered private lists. I also know quite a few people who I speak with daily that get a deluge of spam and have NEVER joined a mailing list or internet forum ever. I DO NOT have a problem with ANYONE being able to join this or any other mailing list. Don't try to change my words out of the context of my message, which was specifically about the archives of this mailing list being public. I see that I left out MAILING LIST ARCHIVES in that one sentence that you quoted, but it doesn't change the fact that I was specifically speaking of the MAILING LIST ARCHIVES which is one of the places that spammers frequently harvest email addresses and other information from if they are made vulnerable by being made public. MAILING LIST ARCHIVES are not the only source of email address/ information harvesting, but it is certainly one of them. Of course, if you yourself are a spammer, I'd understand why you are so quick to make attempts to have people thought of as paranoid when they state that they have personally experienced negative repercussions of public MAILING LIST ARCHIVES. I don't have to be paranoid to know that spam is very much on the rise, identity theft is on the rise, and having experienced it personally, I know of a few ways to minimize the impact. Unfortunately, there are enough gullible people who respond favorably enough to spammers that they have the motivation to be as persistent as you are of trying to make it a non-issue. cheshirekat -- "I never before knew the full value of trees. Under them I breakfast, dine, write, read and receive my company." - Thomas Jefferson
