[Mailman-Users] Complaint: My E-mail address appears on this site without my permission

[Chuq Von Rospach]

At 3:47 PM -0400 8/26/00, John A. Martin wrote:

>How do folks respond to complaints like the one below?
>
>In this example with mailman 1.1 using default options the mail
>addresses in the archives are not obfuscated.


First, I recommend obfuscating. Second, I strongly recommend putting 
archives behind *some* kind of a password, even if that password is 
on a site in plain text, because it'll stop the harvesters. Third, 
use robots.txt to make sure the global spiders don't search and index 
your archives -- if you need search capability, run a site-specific, 
private one. Don't allow your mail archives into global databases 
where you lose control of it.

the last point stops 90% of harvesting. The second takes it to 99.9%. 
Nothing stops the last .1%, and those harvesters are likely 
subscribed and silently sucking the lists, not harvesting the 
archives, anyway.

>My position has been not to _rewrite history_ by modifying mail
>archives.

Archives are a public record. I don't edit them or remove messages, 
any more than a newspaper can unpublish an article in a newspaper. 
But -- that doesn't mean you don't have some responsibility to 
protect those archives from abuse, but anyone who posts anywhere to 
anything on the net is at some risk -- you can manage those risks, 
and should, but the guy can't make the post unhappen, and I consider 
removal of non-libelous data from an archive unacceptable.

-- 
Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui at plaidworks.com)
Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq at apple.com)

And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'"