Re: ADV:CREDIT CARD CRAP

Kent Crispin (kent@songbird.com)
Wed, 9 Dec 1998 11:02:15 -0800


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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On Wed, Dec 09, 1998 at 09:50:40AM -0700, Jason Roberts wrote:
[on spam]
>
> Mounting an effort to annoy him will only waste our time. Even if we
> convince him to remove us from his spam mail list, another spammer will
> arise to take his place. In reality, the flood is just beginning...unless
> we take some measures.
>
> The problem is that the pottergroup's email address is posted on the
> webpage at http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/membership/wwp_grp.htm.
> Compilers of spam mail lists just run "bots"--programs that search every
> page they can, automatically harvesting everything that looks like an email
> address. What's disturbing is that this page also contains the personal
> email addresses of our membership (mine included). This means that when
> the group's address is harvested, ours are likely to be as well.

I wasn't aware of this. Having that list on a web page like that is
*very* bad practice from a privacy point of view. I notice that my
name doesn't appear to be there (for which I am very grateful). You
can be *sure* that the mail addressess have been harvested, probably
multiple times. I suggest that we request that the list of email
addresses be removed from the web page.

> If we're serious about staying off the spam radar, we should ask Allen
> Parks (our esteemed webmaster) to remove the address from the page--and our
> personal addresses to boot.

Having the personal addresses there is a truly bad idea.

-- 
Kent Crispin, PAB Chair				"Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com				lonesome." -- Mark Twain