[Wine] Forum archive reveals email addresses, PLEASE STOP IT.

Marc Chamberlin marc at marcchamberlin.com
Sun Apr 24 22:53:29 CDT 2011


On 4/24/2011 8:22 PM, James McKenzie wrote:
> On 4/24/11 3:37 PM, Marc Chamberlin wrote:
>> In trying to track down how spammers are finding my email address, it
>> has come to my attention that past postings are being archived at
>> http://forum.winehq.org/ which reveals mine and other posters email
>> address.
> The are not "revealed".  Also, your traffic could be captured ANYWHERE
> along the path.  Spam is a part of life on the Internet.  Looks like
> you are getting swamped.
>
> Rules of dealing with spam:
> 1.  Delete all spam messages WITHOUT reading.  Some of the messages
> have trackers built in.  This is why sending HTML formatted mail is a
> no-no to mailing lists.  This mailing list blocks HTML mail, but some
> do not.
> 2.  Configure something like spamassassin if you are receiving mail
> directly from a non-filtering ISP.  This will stop most/all spam from
> getting through.
> 3.  Get and use a 'throw-away' address for mail sent to mailing
> lists.  Most ISPs will allow this if you explain that any return mail
> is being sent to a spam trap.  Use a second address to read the
> mailing list from (it also allows for a full record of what was sent
> by the list.)  Also, this allows you to turn off the send to address
> without causing a serious ruckus on the mailing list or other area
> where you are getting mail from.  Most list mailing software allows
> for the split.  Both addresses will have to be registered.  The first
> you say "I don't want mail to be sent to this address".  The second is
> never used to sent mail to the list.  I know of several people on
> several mailing lists that are doing just this.
>
> All of these are recommended 'Security Best Practices'.
>
> Dimensio has opened a bug report for this problem, but I doubt that
> this will ever get fixed.
>
> BTW, Spammers do not look at the forums for addresses.  Too much like
> work and they like things easy.
>
> James McKenzie
> CISSP 36780
>
>
>
Guys - Thanks for all your replies but I think you are missing the point
of my posting somewhat. Spammers use bots (automated software) that
follow links, auto search for email patterns and harvest em. I simply
did a Google search on my email address to see where it might be showing
up and am trying to track em down and remove as many as I can.. I did
not mean to imply that spam was coming from this mail list solely, just
that I was able to find my email address within the archives. That is a
good indication that bots will also be able to find it eventually, and
don't kid yourself and think the archive is not going to be search! To a
bot, this is just a big data store of linked together pages, easily
traversed and sifted through...

I have checked on other mail lists that I subscribe to, either directly
or via websites, and notice most of them pass all postings through a
filter to change/obfuscate email addresses to varying degrees, including
embedded and reply to's. This mail list should provide the same courtesy
to it's subscribers as well...

My email address in this list appears to be mostly in reply headers from
followup postings....

   Marc...







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