[TriLUG] Concerns about public mail archives (was: The Samba Question you posted about printing)

[Errol Casey]

On Mon, Apr 29, 2002 at 04:13:22PM -0400, Peter Long wrote:
> I am a little concerned by the fact that the trilug mailing list archives 
> are publicly searchable. What are the chances of a web-spider type thing 
> harvesting our email addresses from these archives? 
> 
> I have on two occasions received email from people not on the list 
> regarding questions I had posted on the list. I have no problem with 
> genuine email queries like that, but I dread the day that I start getting 
> spam at this address. 
> 
I understand your fear, but I think eventually all of our addresses will
be found one way or another.

My defense, is to use a software package called TMDA -- Tagged Message Delivery
Agent (http://software.libertine.org/tmda/). It reduces your spam a great
deal by using a confirmation process, for emails that are not on a 
whitelist of addresses. You can also use it to bounce/drop email from
address that you know, you do not want to accept.

TMDA also has a web site on sourceforge http://tmda.sourceforge.net


(TMDA works best with a qmail MTA, but there are ways to make it work
with postfix, exim, and sendmail. I have only used it with qmail.)

I've made the mistake of listing my address and name on various web pages;
with engines like Google -- you'll never get rid of them; so I think the
only way to prevent it is to have good defense (such as TMDA) and good 
filtering software.

But to your comment, trilug could try to avoid publishing the full
email address. I've seen a few lists such as
http://www.ornl.gov/its/archives/mailing-lists/qmail/2002/02/msg00115.html
hide the domain of the actuall email addresses

Good luck, in hiding your email address.