[SI-LIST] Regarding the 'Harvesting' of si-list addresses for SPAM purposes

si-list:

As a great number of si-list subscribers have discovered in the past day 
or two, a si-list member is 'harvesting' the e-mail addresses of si-list 
subscribers to fuel his personal SPAM efforts.

Since June of 2001 the e-mail addresses in messages stored in the web 
accessible archives have been 'obsuscated' to deter address harvesting. 
The master si-list database is not viewable by anyone other than myself, 
and as a matter of principle requests for the list are routinely denied. 
This means the collection of the list addresses must be accomplished by 
extracting the addresses from received traffic. There is really no way 
to enforce a no-harvesting rule when each message sent to 3500+ 
subscribers contains the address of the sender. I suppose we could 
modify the action of the list server software to remove the address of 
the message sender prior to forwarding the message to the list 
subscribers, but I don't want to do that. Besides, the offender already 
has his SPAM list.

I'm sure some (or at least one) will view address harvesting as a form 
of business 'networking', however I believe most will view the generated 
SPAM as an invasion of privacy. I get enough unsolicited garbage in the 
e-mail each day that I certainly don't welcome more as a result of 
someone harvesting addresses from the si-list.

I am going to stop short of publically identifying the subject offender 
in this message. The SPAMMER knows who he is as do all those who 
received his rather bulky mailing.

Perhaps the rules on address harvesting have not been clearly 
articulated before, so let's state them now: The collection of e-mail 
addresses of si-list subscribers to further commercial endeavors such as 
the generation of e-mail SPAM is discouraged. From this point on, any 
such SPAM campaign that appears to be based on the harvesting of si-list 
addresses will result in the unsubsribing of the offender's e-mail 
account from si-list.

I really detest having to write messages like this to the list, however 
I detest SPAM generated from si-list address harvesting even more.

-Ray Anderson
(si-list admin)

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