Btw - it's not just the mail
archives that list the chair's email addresses - each TC's
home page also includes the address of any chairs and secretaries. I
suspect the major problem is the list archives rather than the main TC pages,
although thouse also are harvested, I'm sure. Those on the main external page
could be removed since the "Send a Comment" button sends email to
the chair(s).
I don't think that obfuscating necessarily
would have to prevent direct response messages. I would guess that MOST
folks that want to respond to a message may have OASIS accounts but just aren't
members of a TC they've been browsing through. I don't know how
hard it is to do this, but perhaps the obfuscated name could be turned into a
link that displayed the person's contact info but required an OASIS login
to see it. (If you are logged in, you can already look up a member's
contact info by viewing a TC's roster and clicking on the person's
name.)
An OASIS non-member lurker can always send
a note to the chairs (Send a Comment button) who can pass it along to another
member if needed. Or, perhaps there could be a "Send a Comment"
button on each page displayed from the list archive that would send the message
to the person that posted the message, but without displaying their contact
info.
Anyway, I think there could be some options
without eliminating the possibility of responding but yet still provides obfuscation.
Btw - I would like to use a separate email
for public posting vs. normal work, but our company doesn't allow it.
Rob Philpott
Senior Consulting
Engineer
RSA Security Inc.
Tel: 781-515-7115
Mobile: 617-510-0893
Fax: 781-515-7020
mailto:rphilpott@rsasecurity.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Rich Thompson
[mailto:richt2@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 4:53
PM
To: chairs@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [chairs] SPAM
The quantity of spam I receive jumped by an order of
magnitude when I became active on the OASIS email lists, but I also agree that
it is the wrong place to seek and fight spam. My spam filters now take out
around 90% so that I only have to deal with a few dozen spam emails a day. I
know of people who use a different email list for posting than they do for
lurking such that spammers pick up an unmonitored email address. I'm sure there
are other solutions as well, but losing the ability to directly respond to
someone would be a huge loss. I have received multiple inquires over time that
resulted from a lurker forwarding a thread to a colleague who then directly
emailed me.
Rich Thompson
OASIS WSRP TC Chair
Interaction Middleware and Standards for Portal Server
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center / Yorktown Heights, NY
Phone: (914) 945-3225 / (203) 445-0384 email: richt2@us.ibm.com
"Philpott, Robert"
<rphilpott@rsasecurity.com>
04/13/2004 03:51 PM
|
To
|
"'Eduardo Gutentag'" <Eduardo.Gutentag@Sun.COM>,
"'chairs@lists.oasis-open.org'"
<chairs@lists.oasis-open.org>
|
cc
|
|
Subject
|
RE: [chairs] SPAM
|
|
I'll
counter Eduardo's point a little bit. I for one do know that my work
email address being posted in the OASIS archives
has directly resulted in it
being harvested and placed in the spam lists.
But I use a decent client spam filter and it's not
quite so bothersome any
more.
However, there is one point I want to make re: openness
and spam. I know a
number of individuals that absolutely will not
post to the OASIS lists
because once they do, their email address is
likely to end up on the
spammers lists. So here is a case where the
policy of not obfuscating or
hiding email addresses hinders the openness we all
desire. We miss out on
debate from those individuals who force themselves
to just lurk.
I personally don't care about this issue - as I
said - I've got a decent
spam filter. But I thought I'd raise this
other viewpoint.
Now stand away from that fire Eduardo...
Rob Philpott
Senior Consulting Engineer
RSA Security Inc.
Tel: 781-515-7115
Mobile: 617-510-0893
Fax: 781-515-7020
mailto:rphilpott@rsasecurity.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eduardo Gutentag [mailto:Eduardo.Gutentag@Sun.COM]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 2:50 PM
> To: chairs@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [chairs] SPAM
>
> All,
>
> I have to confess that I have watched with
mounting alarm the turn this
> discussion has
> taken.
>
> I would like to make a couple of
observations, at the risk of sounding
> heretical and
> ready to be tossed on the fire.
>
> My first cause for alarm has been the casual
easiness with which the
> openness of the
> archives has been put aside. I believe that
hiding the sender of archived
> messages in
> a manner that makes it almost impossible for
most human beings to respond
> to or contact the
> sender easily does a disservice to the spirit
of openness of OASIS itself.
> Openess has risks.
> If we can't live with this we should neither
belong to nor work in the
> OASIS environment.
> Spamming is one of the risks. Being responded
to by someone one has never
> met is another.
> Or is that in fact an advantage rather than a
risk? Sometimes it's a pain.
> Sometimes it's a real
> pleasure. Are we going to deny this to
ourselves just because some receive
> more spam than they know
> how to deal with?
>
> Another cause for concern has been the fact
that *no one* has argued that
> OASIS is
> the wrong point at which to fight the spam
that individuals receive. First
> of all, there
> is no evidence that the spam received by
Duane (who started this thread)
> can or should be
> blamed on OASIS archives. It's anecdotal.
It's unprovable. In my
> particular anecdotal case
> I don't believe I've experienced an increase
in spam due to activities in
> OASIS. 70% of the
> spam directed at me goes to
eduardo@eng.sun.com, which is an address I
> have neither used
> nor signed with for years and years. It
nevertheless exists somewhere in
> the Internet; I
> don't know where and I don't care. I just
filter it out and inspect every
> so often. Because
> that's one of the points at which one should
fight spam: at the client
> level. Get yourself
> an intelligent, spam aware client or
filtering mechanism and smile. Don't
> mess with the
> OASIS archives just because your IT
department tells you you have to use a
> bad client. Don't
> mess with the OASIS archives just because
your IT department does not know
> how to filter spam.
> The right points at which to fight spam are
the client, the server, the
> law and the email
> standards, not the OASIS archives.
>
> Just like the only proven way of securing a
computer from internet based
> attacks is by unplugging it from the net, the
only proven way of
> protecting oneself from spam
> is by not sending email: every time you send
email to someone whose
> computer could be
> the victim of a virus, you run the risk of
having your address forwarded
> to a spammer. Are
> you going to stop sending email because of
that? Or are you instead going
> to try to get the
> right protection at the right level?
>
>
> --
> Eduardo Gutentag
| e-mail:
eduardo.gutentag@Sun.COM
> Web Technologies and Standards |
Phone: +1 510 550 4616 x31442
> Sun Microsystems Inc.
| W3C AC Rep / OASIS BoD