In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
murr rhame <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Wed, 29 Apr 1998, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
>
>> The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
>
>If you were to pull your "raise hell" show on one of my lists...
Why would I ever do that??
Are you running mailing lists that allow forged subscriptions with no
confirmation??
>I might muzzle you and LOCK IN your subscription.
In which case I would setup procmail so that each message arriving here from
your list would be bounced back to your list, or to you, or to your postmaster,
or to your upstream's postmaster, or... That would be real fun, now wouldn't
it?
>With a little luck,
>you may stumble across a list admin who has a clue and the right
>software. Your stunt could easily back-fire.
As I have just noted, attempts at retribution can easily and quickly es-
calate into an all-out nuclear confrontation in which _everyone_ loses.
So all things considered, it's best not to even go there. Don't press
the button unless _you_ are also ready to experience Mutually Assured
Destruction.
Bottom line? This isn't a game, and if _you_ are the screw-up in the first
instance... i.e. the one allowing your lists to be used as weapons by various
and sudry net-hooligans... then you had best just admit your mistake and fix
your problem and then go about your business quietly. Starting an online
arms race with someone else whose capabilities you can only guess at would
be a very dangerous game indeed, and could easily backfire on _you_.
>Though I might disagree with the wording, most of what you said is
>substantially correct. There really is not much excuse for running an
>open subscription, *public*, mailing list. Admins who do have open
>automatic subscriptions without confirmation are contributing to the
>problem.
I am glad to see that we _do_ have more than a little common ground here.
Many may object to my sometimes heavy-handed tatics, but I believe that all
responsible members of this list, and indeed all responsible list admins
everywhere do in fact agree than none of us wishes to allow the normally
useful utility of mailing lists to be turned to the improper purpose of
making net-mischief.
>Personally, I will go out of my way to prevent my resources
>from being used to abuse someone else.
I take you at your word, and assume that is true, and that (thus) all of
the lists you run require affirmative subscription confirmations. And
assuming that _that_ is true, you may sleep soundly knowing that you and
I will never have any reason to feel offended by the actions of the other.
Peace man.
-- Ron Guilmette, Roseville, California ---------- E-Scrub Technologies, Inc.
-- Deadbolt(tm) Personal E-Mail Filter demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/deadbolt/
-- Wpoison (web harvester poisoning) - demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/wpoison/
