[Mailman-Developers] Proposed: remove address-obfuscation code from Mailman 3

[Ian Eiloart]

--On 31 August 2009 10:15:43 -0700 C Nulk <CNulk at scu.edu> wrote:

> I am pretty sure allowing the raw email addresses to be available is
> going to go over like a lead balloon here.

Here, too. Our site would probably deploy some other mailing list software.

> Anything (however minor) to
> help protect the users/clients email addresses is helpful despite what
> others think.

All the published research evidence is that email address obfuscation helps 
a lot. At a University site, most student email addresses won't be 
published anywhere EXCEPT in our mailing list archives. That means that the 
best way for spammers to acquire student email addresses is to harvest 
their addresses from our list archives. Students get a lot less spam than 
academic staff whose addresses appear all over the place. So much so that 
everyone who's ever fallen foul of phishing here has been a staff member, 
despite being outnumbered 10:1 by students.

-- 
Ian Eiloart
IT Services, University of Sussex
01273-873148 x3148
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