[Freedombox-discuss] SPAM

[fbox-discuss20120313.neophyte_rep at ordinaryamerican.net]

On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 2:20 PM, Jonas Smedegaard - dr at jones.dk wrote:
> On 12-03-13 at 01:37pm,
> fbox-discuss20120313.neophyte_rep at ordinaryamerican.net wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 1:18 PM, Jonas Smedegaard - dr at jones.dk wrote:
>> > On 12-03-13 at 12:00pm,
>> > fbox-discuss20120313.neophyte_rep at ordinaryamerican.net wrote:
>> >> I have received a solicitation to help transfer a large sum of
>> >> money to the U.S. from our troops in Iraq.  I already understand
>> >> this is a phishing SPAM message.  The only reason I post this is
>> >> the address used was only available in the archives of
>> >> freedombox-discuss at lists.alioth.debian.org, because I use a
>> >> whitelist relay for all my email which allows me to use a unique
>> >> address for all my correspondence.
>> >>
>> >> Perhaps the list archive could have better obfuscation of the
>> >> addresses than the form "user at domain.tld"?  Surely that is just
>> >> as easy to scan for as "user at domain.tld".  I've seen other
>> >> obfuscations such as "user at doma..." on other lists.  Perhaps
>> >> someone could implement such an obfuscation here?
>> >
>> > Please don't obfuscate - that hurts users but less so spammers:
>> > Schemes easy for users to figure out are easy for spammers to figure
>> > out too.
>>
>> If one is concerned about privacy, why would one want ANY reader of
>> the archive to be able to deduce one's address?
>
> Because one can be concerned about privacy without supporting anonymity.
>
> Also, one can be concerned about privacy yet favor transparency over
> privacy for some situations - e.g. software development.
>
> In Debian we expect all participants to have an identity. You are free
> to operate under a pseudonym, if you prefer.  But anonymity we cannot
> provide you.

I do not seek anonymity.  I seek reciprocity.  Harvesters seek value
without exchange.  In their case, I seek to increase the cost of doing
business.  I agree this entails a cost to those with whom I do seek
exchange.  I perceive that as a question of balance.  Apparently, you
wish a different balance point than I do.  I respect that.

>> > Not some other archive somewhere?
>>
>> Some other archive would most likely be a copy of the archive
>> maintained by the list server.  Thus an obfuscation at the server will
>> be an obfuscation of any copy.  It is possible for a bot to subscribe,
>> but that is a higher cost approach.
>
> It is less costly and more reliable for an independent competitive
> web-archives-for-public-lists service to subscribe rather than scrape
> the canonical web representation of the archive.

I will take this as a more informed opinion than my own.  Thank you
for your contribution to my growth.

>  - Jonas
>
> --
>  * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt