Re: More on spam
On Friday 17 October 2003 12:07 pm, Derrick 'dman' Hudson wrote:
>Consider "John Doe", a new user of debian who does his homework by
>searching the web and the archives for the solution to problems he
>encounters before posting to the list. Now suppose John finds some
>information in the archives that seems relevant to his problem, but he
>doesn't find all the information he needs about the solution. Now
>suppose the addresses are available, as they are now. John can
>contact the individual directly and ask for clarification on something
>or more details or whatever. If the addresses weren't available John
>would be unable to ask the person directly, and if the person is no
>longer following list mail then John might not get the support he
>needs.
>
>If your email service is unacceptable, complain to your email
>provider. You must create a business case for them to act. All
>commercial providers are in it for the money (aka business) and unless
>you are affecting that then they won't care.
Derrick, you have done stellar service to the community with your spamassassin
pages, but I think you are being short-sighted here. Speaking strictly about
the www, not usenet, not listservs, I think exposing addresses en clair is
just as foolish as using telnet in an ssh world.
Criminals almost always take the easy path. They are lazy. No matter what path
swen chooses, web-scraping will be the dominant path for address-gathering.
The famous bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks. He
replied because that's where the money is.
The web is "where the money is" for spammers, not usenet, not listservs.
I'm sure you're correct that a certain percentage of users might visit the
debian web archives and look for individual support via private email.
However, to slip into SF geekism, I remember Spock saying to Kirk, "The needs
of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
I think the needs of the many have spelled an end to email addresses being
posted on debian.org web pages.
Jeff Elkins
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