[Mailman-Users] Stop the Confirmation E-Mail

[Jamie Penman-Smithson]

On Wed, 2004-03-17 at 23:12, Steven Massey wrote:
> Jon,
> 
> Thanks for the response.  I would tend to agree with you, but this 
> client is particularly insistent on setting it up this way.  Perhaps 
> people on the list could help me by providing some fodder to argue why 
> there should be a confirmation e-mail.  I've tried saying that people 
> could be maliciously signed up for a list they never wanted to be on, 
> but they don't seem to think that is really an issue.  Are there other 
> reasons I can provide?  Even the smallest things could be useful.

[This may come out slightly stronger than I intended, but it's something
I feel very strongly about - spam...]

A single forged email is all that's needed to get someone subscribed to
a mailing list they didn't want to be subscribed to, and it is far too
easy to forge the sender with SMTP.

By doing that you're simply creating *more spam*, and probably
(hopefully - it'd mean they'd be doing their job) end up blacklisted by
the major RBL's, not to mention have lots of irate users asking you why
they are subscribed to a mailing list they didn't want.

That would mean that most of the mail sent out by your client (and your
server) would be promptly rejected.

Not requiring confirmation also means you can end up with a mass of
email addresses that aren't valid on your mailing list, creating endless
bounces, and more work for your MTA (and Mailman).

If you or your client doesn't think that is going to happen (IOW the
mailing list won't get any spam), they need to get a clue - it won't be
long before you start getting spam to those ML's. If you have any sense
of responsibility you'll persuade them that this is definitely not what
they want.

Just my opinion... take it or leave it..

-- 
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