Mailing list address harvested for spamming

[Hendrik Boom]

On Sun, Dec 02, 2018 at 10:09:02AM +1000, Noel Butler wrote:
> On 02/12/2018 05:31, M. Balridge wrote:
> 
> > Quoting dovecot-e51 at deemzed.uk:
> > 
> >> Not to stir the pot, but I notice my email address has recently been
> >> harvested from this list for spamming purposes. This email address is
> >> unique and not used for anything else.
> >> 
> >> I'd distinguish this from spam sent to the mailing list itself, which is
> >> obviously different.
> >> 
> >> Is there anything further that could be done to prevent this?
> > 
> > It's practically impossible to "police" all of those who sign up for a mailing
> > list that they do so for honest or constructive intentions. In addition,
> > copies of this mailing list are archived by various online search engines and
> > indexors, from content maintained or published by the list operators.
> > 
> > You're already using unique mail addresses, which is a sensible strategy, and
> > one I use myself. In fact, I use a scheme whereby I don't need to change or
> > update any back-end settings to deal with a multitude of unique and ad-hoc
> > specified addresses for every vendor/supplier and interaction point I deal with.
> > 
> > In short, if you use a public mailing list, expect that the address you use
> > for it will be discovered and abused by the nefarious marketeers of the High
> > Bit Seas.
> > 
> > Cordially,
> > =Malcky=
> 
> Since he uses a unique address, it is trivial to write a rule to ensure
> msgs come from dovecot.org and discard everything else, I do that on
> LKML, works a treat. This address alone is a mailing list only address,
> direct messages go to junk folder, which I visually scan occasionally,
> and if I dont within 7 days, tuff, they're deleted automatically. 
> 
> Which is why it annoys me that some people on mailing lists feel the
> need to reply directly, rather than through mailing list. 
> 
> (Yeah I know its also shortcomings of certain mailers and mailing
> services (has gmail even fixed that yet) where hitting reply or reply
> all should go to list.  Its also dumb when list admins dont set reply-to
> list, the entire point of relying to a list, is, well, to the list) 

There's an extensive email etiquette post somewhere on the net 
explaining why setting 'reply-to' to the list is a bad idea.

Reply-to is intended for the sender to explain that replies shouldn't 
be sent to the obvious sending address, but to another address.
This is essential if, say, the sender is temporarily away from home and s using a friend's email service.

It is unfortunate that there are user-agents that do not provide the 
reply-to-list' option.  And that there are mailing list programs that 
do not provide the proper list-headers to indicate the mailing list 
address.

The proper response to such cases is to complain to the email software 
providers.

-- hendrik
 
> 
> -- 
> Kind Regards, 
> 
> Noel Butler 
> 
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