[ILUG] Hmm - old ilug site?

[Colm Buckley]

>> == me
> == adam

Last post on this topic from me.

>> Without wishing to offend you or anyone else, I really don't care.

> Lovely. It's heartening to hear that the administrator of linux.ie
> doesn't give a shite about the users that populate it.

Wrong.  That's not what I said.  I said I don't care that email
addresses are exposed in the pipermail archives.  I still don't.  I'm
taking reasonable steps to protect the security and privacy of the users
on the system, but *really* - you're posting to a *public* *mailing*
*list* and you expect your email address to be kept private?

> If you can tell me a way of filtering my mail before it's downloaded
> from a POP account on a mail server I have no access to, I'd love to
> hear about it.  [...]

I don't think that such filtering is possible, but it might be.  Maybe a
fetchmail configuration could be hacked to use POP3's TOP command to
look at headers; I don't know.  Look at the fetchmail manual to see.
Also check whether your ISP is using the RBL; if they're not, you might
ask them why not...

> In the meantime, I have to download those messages over
> my itty-bitty 56k line before I filter them, which entirely defeats
> the purpose.

How much spam are you *getting*?  I've never taken any steps to hide
any of my email addresses, I've been on the net for eleven years, and I
still only get maybe 20-30 spam messages a day, not more than about ten or
fifteen seconds on a 56k line, or a minute, tops.

You are aware that a number of ISPs are offering unmetered access at
certain times of the day?

> My bandwidth, limited as it is, is important to me. My phone bill is
> already loony-toons. You've heard these arguments before, in relation
> to the Reply-to address munging - they still stand.

Irrelevant, but I fail to see what reply-to: sender versus reply-to:
list has to do with your bandwidth usage.

> Again, I can't be sure that the pipermail archives are the source of
> the spam I receive, but once again, it's a hole that should be blocked
> to negate the chance of it ever happening.  Also, obfuscating email
> addresses in the manner I suggested - passing the address off to a
> script that will either create a form or send a "Location: mailto:"
> header - would have absolutely no negative affect on the server or the
> user. It would simply block - for a time at least - the spambots.

I've taken the steps in http://mosa.unity.ncsu.edu/~brabec/antispam.html
to help cut down on email-address harvesting.  This sort of "once-off"
fix I am perfectly happy to apply, however, you're suggesting,
basically, that I fork the pipermail/mailman distribution and create my
own version with mail address obfuscation.  I don't have time to
maintain such a fork; however anyone else is welcome to request such a
feature from the mailman maintainers and I'll happily use it if it makes
it into the standard distribution.

> Which is what I'll do. But I shouldn't have to do it - the same as I
> shouldn't get replies from the list twice, because an outdated
> document on the web says it's a Bad Thing.

Your getting replies twice isn't my fault, it's the fault of whoever's
sending you the replies, or their mail clients.  If the reply goes to
ilug at linux.ie (a simple matter of editing the To: field), it goes to the
list *only*.  If it goes to your email address (the default), it goes to
you *only*.  If people send it to both, that's not my problem, really.

And, for the Nth time.  The reason replies go to the sender by default
instead of the list is that sending a mail to *fewer* people than
intended by accident is easily-repaired, while sending it to *more*
people than intended is irrevocable.  "Whoops, that was supposed to go
the list; I'll send it again" is okay, while "Oh, damn, that secret/
embarassing/incriminating/insulting/whatever email which I only *meant*
to sent to one person has now gone to 600 people" is definitely *not*
okay.

> I think "hobby-horse" is just plain silly - this is as much about the
> other users on the list as it is about me.

Ah, but you're the only one complaining.  Do you blame me for focussing
on you?

> But once again you come off as a martyr to the linux.ie cause Colm,
> and I honestly can't understand that.  If administering linux.ie is
> really all that much trouble for you, why do you do it?

Administring the services on linux.ie is no trouble.  One of the joys of
Linux is that it's very easy to administer, and requires minimal
intervention once set up.  I have to spend about 10 minutes per day
checking the moderation queues on the lists, and a couple more minutes
each day checking for updates, bugfixes and so on.  Not hard.  As to
'why I do it', well, I enjoy being involved with the community (a
community whose ethos I believe in passionately), and I enjoy that my
expertise, equipment and experience can be useful to others.  At the
same time, however, I *do* do it in my spare time, which isn't
plentiful, and the "simple fix" you suggest isn't actually a simple fix;
it would require me to maintain forked versions of standard software,
which I'm really not up for.

> I'm sure there are others out there who would do it without being half
> as snotty to someone for suggesting that the email addresses of
> linux.ie users be protected.

!

> A little politeness wouldn't go astray.

Matthew 7:3-5

         Colm

-- 
Colm Buckley BA BF | NewWorld Commerce, 44 Westland Row, Dublin 2, Ireland
colm at tuatha.org (personal) | colm.buckley at nwcgroup.com (business)
+353 87 2469146 | whois cb3765 | http://www.tuatha.org/~colm/
If your mother catches you, you'll be in *big* trousers, mate.