Date   : Wed, 25 Oct 2006 03:05:31
From   : Jon Ripley <jon@...>
Subject: Re: [OT] Spam Coming through mailing list

Ian Wolstenholme wrote:
> So I think what is happening is that either somebody or something
> has joined the mailing list with the object of getting hold of the members'
> e-mail addresses and using those addresses to send these messages,
> or I wonder if they could have been picked up from the mailing list
> archive.
>
> I haven't checked but from memory I think the sender's address is
> partially blanked out with dots on the archive listing, so it could be
> that some computer or other has picked up all the partial addresses
> from the archive and generated every combination of missing characters
> until eventually some "valid" e-mail addresses are produced which are
> then used to send the messages.  Just guessing, of course...

I really wish you would check your facts before making them
up^^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hassumptions and blaming the archive.  The email
addresses on the archive are obscured by replacing everything after the
'at' symbol with an ellipsis.  Your mythical spammer would have to guess
the entire domain name including the TLD for every fred@..., jim@... and
sheila@... who has a post immortalised on the archive.

 From the archive help and information:
"All correctly specified email addresses have been obscured to protect
members against spam harvesting, this was introduced after discussion on
the mailing list. This does mean that it may be difficult to distinguish
between multiple members who share the same name."

To everyone though - consider this:

If up to three spam a day were being posted to this mailing list via the
BBC Micro mailing list server then why are none of these spam on the
archive?

Regards,
Jon - BBC Micro Mailing List _Archive_ Maintainer
--
http://nelsonit.net/~jon/BBCMicro/