Re: SPAM Messages

[Craig Burley <burley at gnu dot org>]

>SPAMMERs addressing a mailing list like egcs that's archived on a  
>publicly accessible Web server don't have to do that - they just  
>slurp up the Web pages and scan for mail addresses.

Ooooh, I hadn't thought of that.  Those nasty people!  So you're
saying all our email addresses are publicly available simply
because we're all on the egcs distribution list and that list
is public?  Boy, the things I could learn if I spent more time
surfin'!  Sigh.

Is it out of line to ask whether it's better to make such email
distribution lists private?

>Sorry to be so direct, but there's no use in propagating false  
>beliefes of safety.

I agree with that.  Sorry to have done.  Perhaps my rules do work
for cases of people not on lists with publicly accessible
distribution lists, and I've seen people claim they've watched
their SPAM counts drop dramatically after doing relatively easy
things like switching to modified USENET "From:" addresses, but
perhaps the spammers have started using these newer harvesting
technologies en masse (by virtue of sharing the harvested info,
at least), so obviously my advice wouldn't help anybody on
*this* list.

Still, I do see some people claiming spammers do make some use
of "liveness" information, namely, addresses *from* which they
get replies like "remove me".  But maybe that's old too, if
it was ever true.

Maybe we could somehow teach egcs to insert viruses into any
spammer-harvesting code it compiles?  Naaah.  :)

        tq vm, (burley)

P.S. Part of the reason I'm interested in this is that I'll
probably be changing my email address in the near future,
when I finally pick that new ISP, etc.  I'd like to have some
idea how to avoid being fresh "spam-bait" without taking too
much trouble.  Certainly getting off the egcs mailing list(s)
*would* be too much trouble (though doing so would cut down
on my incoming email considerably ;-).

But it might not be practical for me to have gnu.org stop
forwarding email for a very long time, so it might not matter,
except to the degree I get spammed by people who do use only
*recently* harvested addresses.

IMO, spammers are barnacles on the hull of cybershipping.
That they can't be entirely removed doesn't mean it's a waste
of time to remove some of them here and there.