Ron Guilmette asked Vince Sabio,
| Simple question: If the spammer COULD HAVE just used his
| own majordomo, then why didn't he? Why did he go to all of the trouble
| to have Topica do his spamming for him?
Because for many it is less trouble to set up a list at a big public listhost
than to get an OS that runs list server software, get list server software,
and do all the low-level administrative type things that a big listhost has
already automated for its users. If they can get their spam out hit-and-run
before the listhost's abuse department closes the list down, that's good
enough. Maybe they could have set up Majordomo or another list management
package, but it was much easier to turn the keys and press the buttons on a
public listhost.
Another possibility -- not having the mind of a spammer [such as it is] I
can only guess how such jerks think -- is that a spammer can set up an
account with false personal information on a free ISP, create a list on a
publicly accessible listhost, and hit and run; whereas running a list man-
agement package on its own machine would give away its IP address and leave
it vulnerable to (well-deserved, granted) sanctions.
But every time it's been suggested that Onelist or eGroups drop the function
to add people to lists without their needing to confirm, other listowners
get up in arms that there are some very important members of their lists who
never could have managed to join if they had had to confirm, for whom it is
too daunting to have to use the Reply and Send functions of their mail cli-
ents to answer a confirmation request, yet without whom the list cannot prop-
erly serve its purpose.
