mailing list privacy, etc.

Linux for blind general discussion blinux-list at redhat.com
Fri Apr 15 22:17:01 UTC 2022


Hi,

I concur with Ratislav said, quoted below.

I have checked: all other mailing lists to which I am registered hide neither
the identity nor the email address of the sender. This includes several followed
by blind users an developers:
brltty
cblx
debian accessibility
fenrir-screenreader
orca
speakup
speechd
stormux

Generally, in the archives the email is either partially hidden or re-written.

So, my proposal is:
1) Display the full name with the email address in the headers of messages
posted by the list.
2) Allow to use a pseudo instead of the name when registering.
3) Do not display verbatim the email addresses in the archives.

I was about to send this proposal to blinux-list-owner at redhat.com, but I
would like to know if there are major objections or other proposals or
modifications suggested before I do that. Rewriting welcome, English is not my
native language.

Didier Spaier

Le 15/04/2022 à 19:51, Linux for blind general discussion a écrit :
> Hi,
> 
> I wasn't on this list when the mentioned spam incident occurred, but I
> experienced a similar thing on another mailing list, with basically the
> same attack scenario, except my address was getting subscribed to
> newsletters and other mailing lists.
> 
> Given quite a few of them were unavailable in EU, repeated unsubscribing
> was quite an operation.
> 
> 
> But except the drag of cleaning things up, there was not much else to
> deal with. The list administrators have removed the problematic
> addresses, and everything was fine again.
> 
> 
> In this regard, I view the current list privacy policy as unnecessarily
> overprotective.
> 
> It would make sense, *if* Blinux list was the only mailing list the user
> is signed in, or if significant amount of the other-ones were doing the
> same thing.
> 
> 
> But what is the reality?
> 
> The reality is, that I'm signed up in 9 different mailing lists right
> now (and the number was even higher in the past).
> 
> And Blinux is the only-one of them hiding the eMail addresses in
> communication.
> 
> 
> If a spam wave were to attack, there are plenty of other attack vectors
> than this list.
> 
> 
> And I'm likely not the only-one in a similar situation. I suppose a
> considerable part of this list is also on the Orca mailing list, and
> many, many other communities have their own, where the users may be
> registered.
> 
> 
> If someone is concerned about spam waves, they may consider using a
> separate address or address alias for mailing lists, which they can
> discard if necessary.
> 
> 
> Hiding addresses on the list not just makes communication highly
> inconvenient, as you can't address people, and neither observe their
> behavior and identify the ones with... say lower assertivity skills, but
> another issue is private communication.
> 
> There are situations, when you need to ask or tell a person something
> that is off-topic for the list or contains private information.
> 
> 
> In such cases, asking for a contact and exchanging addresses (even the
> single address), raises far more attention and space than a simple
> private thread reply would.
> 
> 
> Thus, if the spam source was removed back in the days of the incident,
> I'm definitely for turning the names and addresses on.
> 
> 
> And if the incident repeated, we could also very well just move the list
> to a different provider, with stronger sign up security measures. There
> are many to choose from.
> 
> 
> Best regards
> 
> 
> Rastislav
> 
> 
> Dňa 15. 4. 2022 o 0:14 Linux for blind general discussion napísal(a):
>> If we get spam, which I mean that happens regardless, from
>>> online account leaks of your email address, to going on dubious sites and
>>> submitting your email because you got a text saying you won $500, spam is
>>> gonna happen. If your mail provider, or mail server, or email client, can't
>>> deal with spam, usually by you marking an email from a sender as spam and
>>> the program automatically marking further messages from that sender as spam
>>> too, then that's a problem with your setup, not the list.
>>
>> You were not here when this happened, so you are not understanding the
>> problem that occurred. Every time anyone would post a message to this
>> list, that person would get inundated with hundreds of pornographic spam
>> messages, not all from the same sender, and even the major email
>> providers like Gmail and Yahoo couldn't keep up. Hundreds would come in
>> to one individual's mailbox, and 30 or more would survive all the spam
>> filtering thrown at them. I wouldn't say that the problem was with the
>> list itself, or even with its administration, but I do know that it
>> wasn't bad spam filters that were to blame. Yes, spam will happen no
>> matter what. It's just part of email. But this was truly out of control
>> and something had to be done quickly to fix it. I'm not necessarily
>> arguing that this measure still needs to be taken in this way even now,
>> but it was the best solution at the time.
>>
>> ~Kyle
>>
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> 
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