[ATM] re spam

[Chris Rowland]

David B. Toth wrote:
> At 03:51 AM 7/1/2007, Charles Mitchard wrote:
>> Anyone who is getting 100+ spam emails in their account must have a
>> pretty poor ISP.
> 
> Actually, some might think that all of these messages about SPAM is SPAM.
> 
> Just a thought.
> 
> And once again, despite what some think, you CAN mine addresses from 
> Yahoo groups just by turning on View Source in the Web Interface. 
> Headers and addresses are all exposed.

This is only the case for groups to which you are subscribed and logged on.

For groups to which you are not subscribed the addresses are NOT visible.

Try this for yourself, find a Yahoo group with public access that you 
aren't subscribed to and try to find email addresses, you will find that 
they are not visible.

This means that someone wanting to harvest email addresses from a Yahoo 
group has to start by registering and being accepted by the group. Most 
groups control this and identify genuine applicants before allowing them 
to register and this will keep the majority of the spammers out.

The ATM list - the archives that is - doesn't even try and people seem 
to resent the suggestion that they should do so. They seem to think that 
it doesn't matter, that spammers will get their email addresses anyway. 
This may be true but when a door is left open then there isn't much 
point in checking to see if the lock was picked before the burglary.

As I see it the ATM list owes me a duty of care of my personal 
information that I've provided as a condition of subscribing and not 
only have they have failed in this duty but they don't even think they 
should.

Wake Up chaps!  Its 2007! This is the Internet!

Chris