[Mailman-Users] list archives

[Simon]

On 7/17/2008 4:03 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>>> ARCHIVER_CLOBBER_DATE_POLICY = 2 

>> Ah, perfect, thanks... so setting it to 1 will always use the received date.
>> 
>> I'm wondering what the disadvantages to this are - assuming the server 
>> date/time is always correct?

> The main disadvantage AFAICS is that the Date header is an author
> header according to the standards; mail handlers should pass it
> through unchanged.
> 
> Practically, mail is somewhat unreliable (more so, these days).  In a
> large archive, you will surely see many messages where some hop
> introduced a delay of many hours.  It is sometimes useful in forensics
> (eg, identifying spam -- IIRC some of the pump and dump spams were
> deliberated postdated so that more victims would think they were
> looking at very fresh information).
> 
> Finally, any time you add something that changes the message you add
> potential for bugs.  Also, by changing the message you may make it
> less reliable as evidence should that be necessary.

Good points... and explains the more sensible default setting of 2...

Thanks...