Re: Spam: process the web archives?
>>>>> "anthony" == Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes:
anthony> On Wed, Oct 16, 2002 at 05:48:16PM +0200, Santiago Vila wrote:
>> We should not disseminate email addresses from people who subscribed
>> to our lists or allow others to do so.
anthony> Just face it, if you're giving out your address to strangers by posting
anthony> to public mailing lists, it's public knowledge already, and it's too
anthony> late to hide it.
AJ is right.
Santiago, all the spammers need to do is to subscribe to all mailing
lists. Nice passive collection, data comes right to the door, just
need to parse out a few potential addresses from every mailer, add
them to the list. Why should the spammers care if they only get 15%
valid addresses? I don't see any way to prevent them from signing up
for mailing lists.
Secondly, they can always post-filter later with obvious
de-obfustication algorithms, or leave them in so as to be able to
claim:
"Billions of email addresses sold here"
best,
-tony
--
A.J. Rossini Rsrch. Asst. Prof. of Biostatistics
U. of Washington Biostatistics rossini@u.washington.edu
FHCRC/SCHARP/HIV Vaccine Trials Net rossini@scharp.org
-------------- http://software.biostat.washington.edu/ ----------------
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