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) ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List FAQ wiki page is located at: http://si-list.org/wiki/wiki.pl List technical documents are available at: http://www.si-list.org List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu