From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Aug 10 3: 7: 0 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7A53437B400 for ; Sat, 10 Aug 2002 03:06:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from anchor-post-35.mail.demon.net (anchor-post-35.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.85]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 02E6E43E3B for ; Sat, 10 Aug 2002 03:06:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kevin@caomhin.demon.co.uk) Received: from caomhin.demon.co.uk ([62.49.21.186]) by anchor-post-35.mail.demon.net with esmtp (Exim 3.36 #2) id 17dT96-0003WH-0U; Sat, 10 Aug 2002 11:06:56 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 11:06:13 +0100 To: William Palfreman Cc: questions@freebsd.org From: Kevin Golding Subject: Re: Email address harvesting from the FreeBSD archive References: <20020810103419.D8173-100000@bell.lan.palfreman.com> In-Reply-To: <20020810103419.D8173-100000@bell.lan.palfreman.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Integrated Version 5.01 U Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Someone, quite probably William Palfreman, once wrote: >I've noticed since I started participating a bit on FreeBSD mailinglist >I seem to be getting a lot more spam. Looking though the archive I see >that no attempt is make to disguise participants email addresses. So >really, sending emails to this list is an guaranty of steadily >increasing amounts of spam, all the way up to hotmail and aol >proportions. And really, while email addresses are undisguised in the >archive, I'd have to be crazy to keep posting to the list, wouldn't I? Using tools like SpamAssassin, Razor, Procmail, MailDrop, TMDA, and many more all help reduce the amount of spam you'll actually see. I don't actually get a great deal go directly to me, I notice a greater connection between spam and the number of USENET posts I make to be honest. Most spam that you'll get is sent straight to the list as it takes far less effort to hit a few thousand people with one mail than to harvest addresses and mass mail those people yourself. Again, using sensible filters will save you from any real exposure. As for whether or not it's worth posting to the list that's up to you. Post and receive help, post and offer help. The question is whether or not you get any value from doing either. Personally I don't find spam unmanageable, most of it is diverted away from my main mailbox and if I've got time I report it before emptying out the spambin and proactively try to cut the problem down. Kevin -- kevin@caomhin.demon.co.uk To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message