[clug] Re: surgery

[Sam Couter]

Tim Potter <tpot at samba.org> wrote:
> There must be hundreds of thousands of automated response systems in 
> the form of list request addresses.  Why aren't we constantly being
> bombarded by messages from these automated response systems?

I have been bombarded by such messages at times.

I'll make a few guesses as to why it's rare though:

1) Nobody keeps the -request addresses in their address book, so LookOut
viruses won't use them to send to or fake from.

2) The -request addresses don't often appear in web pages or other
easily harvested places. The addresses are never used to post from, so
there are no archived messages from that address on the web anywhere.
Mailman and other list interfaces usually present a form on the web for
you to enter an email address for them to fake-mail a subscription
request from, they don't present the -request address itself for
harvesting.

Neither of these explanations would reduce the volume of joe-jobs to or
from the real mailing list address: It's in everyone's address book, and
it appears in millions of easily harvested places on the web.
-- 
Sam "Eddie" Couter  |  mailto:sam at couter.dropbear.id.au
Debian Developer    |  mailto:eddie at debian.org
                    |  jabber:sam at teknohaus.dyndns.org
OpenPGP fingerprint:  A46B 9BB5 3148 7BEA 1F05  5BD5 8530 03AE DE89 C75C
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