From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V9 #134 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Wednesday, May 14 2003 Volume 09 : Number 134 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Today's your birthday, friends... [Mike Matthews ] Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway [Andrew Fries ] DVD rippin' ["Marcel Rijs" ] Re: Vienna Teng at Music Millenium in Portland ["John Zimmer" ] Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway [Sander ] RE: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway ["Bill Adler" ] Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway [Leon van Stuivenberg ] Re: Vienna Teng at Music Millenium in Portland ["Brian Bloom" ] Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway ["Brian Bloom" ] Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway [Steve VanDevender ] RE: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway & some ecto content [JoAnn Whetsell ] Re: MP3 rippin' [Steve VanDevender ] Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway [carnivore@att.net] Odessa Chen: the case of the vanishing website [Noe Venable ] Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway ["R. N. Dominick" ] Re: Vienna Teng at Music Millenium in Portland [Alan Subject: Today's your birthday, friends... i*i*i*i*i*i i*i*i*i*i*i *************** *****HAPPY********* **************BIRTHDAY********* *************************************************** *************************************************************************** ********************** Steve Fagg (no Email address) ********************** ******************* Karel Zuiderveld (no Email address) ******************* *************************************************************************** -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Steve Fagg Tue May 13 1958 Nightwol Karel Zuiderveld Fri May 13 1960 Stier Michael Colford Wed May 16 1962 Taurus Christopher Boek Tue May 19 1970 Taurus Julia Macklin Mon May 20 1968 ethereus Yngve Hauge Fri May 21 1971 Gemini Lisa Laane Tue May 22 1973 Gemini Jewel Kilcher Thu May 23 1974 The Gem Chandra Sriram Thu May 27 1971 Gemini Taina Sahlander Mon May 28 1973 Gemini Urs Stafford Thu May 31 1973 Give Way Perttu Yli-Krekola Thu June 02 1966 Kaksoset Alex Gibbs Thu June 08 1967 Betelgeuse Gleb Zverev Tue June 09 1964 Gemini Sonja Juchniewich Mon June 10 1963 Pegasus Joerg Plate Mon June 12 1967 Gemini Chris Montville Tue June 13 1978 Gemini Ectoplasm (original name) Mailing List Thu June 13 1991 Fuzzier blue - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 2003 17:19:46 +1000 From: Andrew Fries Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway On Tue, 2003-05-13 at 15:49, Kjetil Torgrim Homme wrote: > [Bill]: > > > > I vote for removing the ecto gateway to usenet. I too feel a > > little worried about what I write on ecto being broadcast in the > > blind over to usenet. Sure, anyone can join the ecto list, but > > nonetheless there seems to be some sense of finiteness when > > communicating within a mailing list versus a newsgroup. > > how do you feel about > http://www.smoe.org/lists/ecto/ > or even > http://web.archive.org/web/19990210082928/http://www.smoe.org/lists/ecto/ I'd like to add my vote for removing our usenet presence. And given the choice, I'd say the same about all other forms of web archives, except for the official ones on smoe. This is because they are under our direct control, so for example, if we get sufficiently motivated, we could write a script that would go through the lot and munge all email addresses. BTW, this is also the reason I've always pushed for in-house search engine for our archives instead of counting on Google or some such... I might add, I changed my email address in January, yet the spammers are starting to find their way into my inbox - so far only a couple of messages a week, but it's just a matter of time... How? I no longer have a website, and I don't give out my address to anyone likely to sell it. The only possibility I can see is harvesting mail lists I'm on - Ecto and a couple of Linux related ones; this probably explains why the amount of spam I get is relatively small. I'd like to keep it that way :) - --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Grrr...Arrgh!" -- Mutant - -- 17:08:12 up 8 days, 3:58, 2 users, load average: 0.02, 0.05, 0.00-- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 09:38:28 +0200 From: "Marcel Rijs" Subject: DVD rippin' Dear all, I have a question burning in my mind and I can't seem to get an answer for it. Since the recent MP3 rippin' subject seems to draw to an end, I think I can ask this to you techies out there: How can I start rippin' DVD's? I have a nice DVD recorder in my PC, but in the last five months I have not been able to do anything with it. I recently bought a 'standalone' dvd recorder, with which I can record tv programmes, but when I want to take them off the disc to re-order them on separate discs, I can't. (I'm not really interested in copying copyrighted dvd's, although that would be a nice bonus.) So far, I've only seen pricy software packages (40$ and more) in the stores, but I hate to buy a piece of software and find out that it doesn't work after all. Does anyone know something about this? Your help would be greatly appreciated. Kind regards, Marcel Rijs - marcel.rijs@kb.nl afd. Communicatie - Communication department Koninklijke Bibliotheek - National Library of the Netherlands Website - http://www.kb.nl ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 01:19:25 -0700 From: "John Zimmer" Subject: Re: Vienna Teng at Music Millenium in Portland Alan spake thusly: > I got dragged along with a friend to go see Vienna Teng this past > Friday at Music Millennium in Portland Oregon. > > I am *very* glad I went. Me too, and I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself; I was sitting on the left- side sofa nearest the stage, along with Michael Pearce and Elana (and her spangly hat). It appears the ecto contingent for the in-store was even larger than I thought. And it was indeed quite a wonderful (and all-too-short) show, but with the upside that we got a bit of time before and afterwards to renew aquaintances and generally chat with Vienna and her boyfriend. She is genuinely as nice a person as she is talented, and I believe she acquired a number of new fans at this performance. > Vivian Teng's web site (for those who do not know) is at > http://www.vivianteng.com/ With only the slight correction that the URL is: http://www.viennateng.com John ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 08:05:22 -0400 From: "Foghorn J. Fornorn" Subject: RE: DVD rippin' It may take some rummaging, but almost everything you would want to know can be found at http://www.dvdrhelp.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 14:15:45 +0200 From: Sander Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway Andrew Fries wrote: > I'd like to add my vote for removing our usenet presence. And given the > choice, I'd say the same about all other forms of web archives, except > for the official ones on smoe. This is because they are under our direct > control, so for example, if we get sufficiently motivated, we could > write a script that would go through the lot and munge all email > addresses. BTW, this is also the reason I've always pushed for in-house > search engine for our archives instead of counting on Google or some > such... I think it'd be very sad to see the usenet archives go, and definitely it this were to happen before we have such an in-house search. But even then, google groups are one of the first places people search for information and introducing the world to the musical opinions that pass on this list can only be a good thing, IMO. I know that it was partly because I was able to search the ecto archives on google whenever I wanted some quick impressions of artists that I became familiar enough with this list to feel I wanted to sign up for it. And I've grown to appreciate what is said here so much that I've even bothered to create a custom keyword in Mozilla just so I can quickly search the ecto archives (for those not aware of this feature, I can now type "ecto vienna teng" in my location bar, and mozilla will search the ecto group for all messages about vienna teng - all by creating this bookmark: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%s%20group:fa.music.ecto and assigning the keyword "ecto" to it). I wonder how much spam those with unique email addresses just for this list are getting. I've only posted my first message to the list less than a month ago, so the fact that I haven't yet received a single spam email to this address isn't significant, but if other people with addresses not used anywhere else are also getting relatively low amounts of spam... (And of course it's always possible to set the x-no-archive header to individual mail if you don't want it to be archived.) Of course, on the entire issue of spam, in this day and age of viruses that send along random email addresses from people's address books, once private email addresses propagate ever more quickly. I know the amount of spam I've been getting at some other email addresses increased manifold since just after klez. Sander n.r. Tad Williams - The War of the Flowers n.p. Elin Sigvardsson - Papercup Words (I don't remember who it was that recommended her, but _thank you_ :) Though I wonder how I'm ever going to get my hands on her cd.) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 09:09:51 -0400 From: "Bill Adler" Subject: RE: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway And another vote for ending the gateway. - --Bill n.p. October Project, "Different Eyes" - -----Original Message----- From: owner-ecto@smoe.org [mailto:owner-ecto@smoe.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Fries Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 3:20 AM To: Ecto Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway On Tue, 2003-05-13 at 15:49, Kjetil Torgrim Homme wrote: > [Bill]: > > > > I vote for removing the ecto gateway to usenet. I too feel a > > little worried about what I write on ecto being broadcast in the > > blind over to usenet. Sure, anyone can join the ecto list, but > > nonetheless there seems to be some sense of finiteness when > > communicating within a mailing list versus a newsgroup. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 09:42:00 -0400 From: Mark Chapman Subject: Gig Announcement Question Ken, I saw this on Bon Lozaga's webpage. Is Happy's involvement confirmed? > July 2 (Wednesday) - New York City, NY > The Bottom Line > With Happy Rhodes I have that week off from work and might consider driving up from D.C. if I could be sure that Happy is going to be there. Thanks, ~Mark ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 17:22:58 +0200 From: Leon van Stuivenberg Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway Bill Adler wrote: > And another vote for ending the gateway. ditto. Btw, isn't there an option in the listserver that just removes the from: address? or replaces it with ecto@smoe.org? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 09:29:36 -0700 (PDT) From: "Brian Bloom" Subject: Re: Vienna Teng at Music Millenium in Portland > Alan spake thusly: > >> I got dragged along with a friend to go see Vienna Teng this past >> Friday at Music Millennium in Portland Oregon. >> >> I am *very* glad I went. > > Me too, and I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself; I was sitting on the > left- side sofa nearest the stage, along with Michael Pearce and Elana > (and her spangly hat). It appears the ecto contingent for the in-store > was even larger than I thought. Dang. And I'm disappointed that I didn't know about it or I might have been there too. I work just a few blocks from Music Millenium. Grrrrr. moo. ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 2003 12:49:17 -0400 From: Dan Riley Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway Would it be excessively impertinent to suggest that people interested in the subject, who weren't on the list in early 2000 (or have short memories), read the thread that starts at http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=fa.jg8376v.p7i1io%40ifi.uio.no and, even more historical, http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Jun.9.23.50.23.1991.28842%40athos.rutgers.edu for a little background? - -dan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 10:07:45 -0700 (PDT) From: "Brian Bloom" Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway While I am in agreement with the folks who want the gateway removed for spamming reasons, I realized I'm even slightly more concerned about the privacy of the "ecto family". This list has conducted more discussion than just music. Lots of personal information has been mentioned, including phone numbers and addresses (house concerts, ectohostels, gatherings, etc). There have been (albeit isolated) cases where fellow ecto members turned to the group in times of personal crises and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that being logged on usenet. As has been pointed out previously, the smoe archives are a little less threatening because we do control that content, but perhaps we should exert a little more concern and consider moderating things [ie, deleting content] not relevant to "the outside world". I know that ecto is a little larger and more lax than the small clan of groupies it started as, but I'm still leary of airing our laundry in public... Munging email addresses should be a given, just as a due diligence step to cut down on spam harvesting, but what does anyone else think of my other point? Anyway, just my lil' ol mooman opinion... > Bill Adler wrote: >> And another vote for ending the gateway. > > ditto. > > Btw, isn't there an option in the listserver that just removes the from: > address? or replaces it with ecto@smoe.org? > > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 10:29:42 -0700 From: Steve VanDevender Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway Leon van Stuivenberg writes: > Bill Adler wrote: > > And another vote for ending the gateway. > > ditto. > > Btw, isn't there an option in the listserver that just removes the from: > address? or replaces it with ecto@smoe.org? How then would we know who wrote what? How would we be able to make an off-list reply to a message? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 11:09:19 -0700 From: Steve VanDevender Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway Brian Bloom writes: > While I am in agreement with the folks who want the gateway removed for > spamming reasons, I realized I'm even slightly more concerned about the > privacy of the "ecto family". We've had this discussion before, and my position then was the same as my position now -- any notion of privacy on an open-subscription mailing list is an illusion in the minds of people who have not thought things through. Unless we change Ecto to require identity-confirmed subscriptions and institute policies that strictly limit how any subscriber can republish Ecto postings, there is absolutely no way that any expectation of privacy can be maintained on this list. Given the existence of things like Google and the Wayback Machine, there is also no way that any change now can affect the archives that have already been made publicly accessible. As for the fa.music.ecto gateway, who says this is up for a vote? If the gateway was set up with the knowledge and permission of the list owners, or the list owners do not feel there is a need to restrict gatewaying of the list, then it is just as legitimate as any other subscriber of the list. And presumably fa.music.ecto was set up for a reason to serve some number of people; does anyone care what _they_ think? What options will be offered to them if the gateway is shut down? I say these things as someone who operates mailing lists myself -- while I try to have list policies that reflect the desires of the subscribers to my lists, and I fully believe that the Ecto maintainers feel the same way, mailing lists are not typically democracies, especially not ones which are provided for free to all comers. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 11:23:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Neile Graham Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway I'd like to point out that about a year ago I changed my email on this list to my drizzle.com address and still very very rarely get spam sent there while I get dozens a day sent to the old account, sff.net (happily, I have a good spam filter which tags most of them). In my experience ecto isn't have much effect on my spam level. I have started other accounts elsewhere and immediately gotten spam there. Remember, there are spam generators that simply send to likely accounts, without bothering to harvest them anywhere. They simply pick a domain name and run through all the likely account names. Until the spam laws are changed I think it's naive to think that doing something like removing the gateway or messing with the archives is going to have much effect. In fact, spam law don't have much effect--I live in the state (WA) that supposedly has the strongest spam laws--or maybe that's why I get little spam through my drizzle.com account: its home base is in Seattle so maybe spammers avoid sending spam there? My worst experience has been with hotmail accounts. Even ones that I have never used anywhere get tons of spam, leading me to realize that Microsoft must sell their lists or those account-generating programs are strong enough to figure out the kinds of account names you need to create with hotmail. Amazing. I have also gotten some good contacts through the gateway, so I think it's silly for it to go. - --Neile - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- neile@drizzle.com / neile@sff.net......http://www.sff.net/people/neile The Ectophiles' Guide to Good Music ......... http://www.ectoguide.org Co-Administrator, Clarion West ............ http://www.clarionwest.org ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 14:27:18 -0400 From: JoAnn Whetsell Subject: RE: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway & some ecto content Perhaps there could/should be some warning message on the website where people sign up for the mailing list, or in the message you receive when you join that reminds people that the list is archived on the web. I subscribed and posted to ecto for years before I knew that (when it eventually came up in a discussion similar to the current one.) I'm not that techno-savvy, and I simply never thought about the messages going anywhere other than to the inboxes of list recipients. That's not to say that any or everyone will remember when posting that the message may be read by non-ecto list members, but at least it will assure that they were warned at least once. As for ecto content, thanks for all the discussion and advice on MP3 ripping. I ordered a player which should arrive tomorrow, and I'm excited. And as for musical content, the CNN website has a nice article on Lucinda Williams. http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/05/09/leisure.williams.reut/index.html - -----Original Message----- From: Steve VanDevender [mailto:stevev@hexadecimal.uoregon.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 2:09 PM To: ecto@smoe.org Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway Brian Bloom writes: > While I am in agreement with the folks who want the gateway removed for > spamming reasons, I realized I'm even slightly more concerned about the > privacy of the "ecto family". We've had this discussion before, and my position then was the same as my position now -- any notion of privacy on an open-subscription mailing list is an illusion in the minds of people who have not thought things through. Unless we change Ecto to require identity-confirmed subscriptions and institute policies that strictly limit how any subscriber can republish Ecto postings, there is absolutely no way that any expectation of privacy can be maintained on this list. Given the existence of things like Google and the Wayback Machine, there is also no way that any change now can affect the archives that have already been made publicly accessible. As for the fa.music.ecto gateway, who says this is up for a vote? If the gateway was set up with the knowledge and permission of the list owners, or the list owners do not feel there is a need to restrict gatewaying of the list, then it is just as legitimate as any other subscriber of the list. And presumably fa.music.ecto was set up for a reason to serve some number of people; does anyone care what _they_ think? What options will be offered to them if the gateway is shut down? I say these things as someone who operates mailing lists myself -- while I try to have list policies that reflect the desires of the subscribers to my lists, and I fully believe that the Ecto maintainers feel the same way, mailing lists are not typically democracies, especially not ones which are provided for free to all comers. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 12:06:11 -0700 From: Greg Bossert Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway On Tuesday, May 13, 2003, at 11:09 US/Pacific, Steve VanDevender wrote: > We've had this discussion before, and my position then was the same as > my position now -- any notion of privacy on an open-subscription > mailing > list is an illusion in the minds of people who have not thought things > through. i must agree with Mr. VanDevender here, and his other points, not reproduced here. and i second Dan's suggestion to (ironically) go search the archives before we repeat ourselves too much here. though i would amend Steve's "not thought things through" to "not had access to the informed discussions of the technical and social ramifications of privacy on the internet" -- i am certain that people are thinking hard, but there is a lot of misleading or downright incorrect information about privacy and how the internet works out there... i've spent enough time working in the internet security field to firmly believe that the issue of privacy on the internet is social rather than technical or procedural. which is to say, in most cases, attempts to increase the privacy of an internet resource only serve to lessen its usefulness and availability. i believe that this would be true for Ecto, and i did so back when i hosted and pseudo-moderated the list. i talk about all sorts of controversial or personal things with my friends in restaurants and parks and cafes -- heck, i *go* to cafes to talk, sometimes with great vigor and jumping about. i've also listened in to my fair share of neighboring conversations, and occasionally joined in uninvited. i have not, to the best of my recollection, subsequently burgled a home or stolen an identity based on such conversations, nor has anyone done the same to me. in another analogy, i sign up on lots of (snail) mailing lists, at concerts, galleries, etc. and as a result i get a lot of good old physical junk mail. i usually take a peek in case it's of interest, and then drop it in a big recycling box. i pretty much do the same with my email, and it just doesn't bother me much. (i do think that there are some effective strategies against spam, but they are largely legal in nature -- i encourage anyone who is concerned about spam, privacy, and freedom of speech on the internet to start at the Electronic Frontier Foundation home-page and follow the links form there...) the internet has caused a big wobble in our sense (and trust) of community, but i am confident that the long-term solution will be to rebuild that trust, rather than break the community down in the name of privacy. to moderate all that: i would be distraught to think that people stopped participating in Ecto because of these concerns. my first step would be to reassure all that, to the best of my fairly informed knowledge, participating on Ecto is unlikely to be a significant factor is lessening your privacy, and quite likely to be a significant factor in increasing your musical and general happiness...! if spam or the privacy of your main email account is a problem, sign up for a free email account and use it for your public mailing list activities -- many of the places that offer such accounts also offer spam filtering, and some allow effectively anonymous accounts. though the american public, who currently seems ready to give up any and all rights when faced with the slightest risk, is currently letting the extremists in the federal government remove any legal protection for such anonymous accounts, or for privacy in general. if you are really worried about your privacy and your defense against gross business practices such as unsolicited email, then put your vote where your mouth is and get the fanatic neo-conservatives out of power (this holds for non-usa citizens as well, i note!) - -g n.p. Radio Tarifa "Rumba Argelina" - -- "i've never been afraid to change the circumstances of the world" - -- Happy Rhodes - -- "except for bunnies..." - -- Anya ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 12:46:54 -0700 From: Steve VanDevender Subject: Re: MP3 rippin' Bill writes: > > On Tue, 6 May 2003 16:56:16 -0700, Steve VanDevender wrote: > > >Paul Blair writes: > > > Damn, is there anyone on this list who *isn't* a UN*X geek? > > > >Apparently, Bill G. isn't [...] > > Actually, I am. I run my own domain on my own FreeBSD box. I guess that reminds me not to make assumptions. Although since MP3 encoding is basically just file processing you could just as easily do it on your UNIX hosts as your Windows hosts, especially since UNIX-based CD rippers and MP3 encoders are easily available. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 19:47:36 +0000 From: carnivore@att.net Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway The reason Hotmail and MSN accounts get so much spam is that their E-mail servers are prone to "dictionary attacks". That is, spammers continuously send out probes to every possible letter/number combination @hotmail.com or msn.com, and if they are found to be valid, those addresses get added to spam mailing list and resold. The same is true with most of the other big, well-knows ISPs, although I understand most of them have better security measures in place than Microsoft to defeat such attacks (big surprise). Apparently the best way to avoid dictonary attacks is to have a very long E- mail address with unlikely combinations of letters, numbers, and characters (like underscores and dots) - which are the same characteristics that make for good passwords. The trouble with that is it makes it difficult for your friends to remember your E-mail address if it's long and nonsensical. As for the gateway and archive, I don't think anyone can deny that the internet is a far different place now than it was a few years ago. Spam and privacy issues have increased exponentially, so what made sense in the mid-90s may not be such a good idea now. While I don't mind so much that the discussions are posted, I would like to see the E-mail addresses start getting masked. Is there software available to the list owners that might delete/replace everything after the @ symbol before relaying it to the archives or usenet, so E-mail addresses would all appear in a format like, "name@xxxxxx"? That way, readers would have a pretty good idea who posted the comment, but the addresses would be less susceptible to abuse. Dan%^@S.tark ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 13:54:30 -0700 From: Noe Venable Subject: Odessa Chen: the case of the vanishing website okay, I don't know what happened, but Odessa's website is back now. snow angels. Check it out http://www.odessachen.com/music.php bye :) noe ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 2003 09:36:04 +1000 From: Andrew Fries Subject: Address handling, was: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway On Wed, 2003-05-14 at 04:09, Steve VanDevender wrote: > We've had this discussion before, and my position then was the same as > my position now -- any notion of privacy on an open-subscription mailing > list is an illusion in the minds of people who have not thought things > through. I totally agree with this. My only concern is the availability of our email addresses to spammers, nothing else. As far as privacy goes, the only possible way to handle it is to delegate it to self-censorship on the part of each poster - be aware you are posting on a public forum, and act accordingly. It is true that so far Ecto has not been a huge source of spam, but that's precisely the reason it makes sense to implement some sort of security measures. It isn't too late yet - but it's just a matter of time. Sooner or later some email harvester *will* stumble upon our archives. Let's be ready! With this in mind, I'd like to redirect this discussion to this simple question: what can be done to obscure our email addresses? The option of setting our headers to no-archive is not a very good one, because it defeats the purpose of having list archives in the first place. I am after something that would replace an address with a simple "name at domain", perhaps with a couple of extra characters that are obvious to human reader but not email harvester. These simple measures are fairly effective, as was recently found in that study doing the rounds around the net - I suppose some of you came across that article too. I just had a quick look on freshmeat but so far didn't come up with anything useful. - --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Grrr...Arrgh!" -- Mutant - -- 09:19:30 up 8 days, 20:09, 2 users, load average: 0.14, 0.07, 0.01-- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 16:49:56 -0700 (PDT) From: "Brian Bloom" Subject: Re: Address handling, was: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway > With this in mind, I'd like to redirect this discussion to this simple > question: what can be done to obscure our email addresses? The option of > setting our headers to no-archive is not a very good one, because it > defeats the purpose of having list archives in the first place. I am > after something that would replace an address with a simple "name at > domain", perhaps with a couple of extra characters that are obvious to > human reader but not email harvester. These simple measures are fairly > effective, as was recently found in that study doing the rounds around > the net - I suppose some of you came across that article too. How about something exceedingly simple like appending .ecto on the domain name of each address? So my current address would be brian@mooman.com.ecto We could have a faq or footnote explaining to readers to remove the ecto bit from the address, but should stop any autoharvester dead in its tracks. And by having an invalid domain name it would also cut down on the traffic to those domains (I get an absurd amount of email to bogus or mistyped addresses at 'mooman.com'. Merely munging the username and leaving the domain alone isn't adequate in my opinion) ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 2003 10:39:06 +1000 From: Andrew Fries Subject: Re: Address handling, was: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway On Wed, 2003-05-14 at 09:49, Brian Bloom wrote: > How about something exceedingly simple like appending .ecto on the domain > name of each address? > > So my current address would be brian@mooman.com.ecto Seems pretty good. Or, how about appending "hotmail" after each @, so your address would become brian@hotmail.mooman.com. That way if some harvester tries to be "clever", it will be pretty likely to recognise "hotmail" and strip the rest, rather than the other way around - let's redirect spam to where it belongs :) - --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Grrr...Arrgh!" -- Mutant - -- 10:34:10 up 8 days, 21:24, 2 users, load average: 0.01, 0.10, 0.06-- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 21:00:53 -0400 From: Mike Connell Subject: Re: Address handling, was: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway >How about something exceedingly simple like appending .ecto on the domain >name of each address? > >So my current address would be brian@mooman.com.ecto > >We could have a faq or footnote explaining to readers to remove the ecto >bit from the address, but should stop any autoharvester dead in its >tracks. If the user (author) of the post did that to his/her email address, it would then bounce for approval to the list-owner, WOJ. Else he would have to change the lists' config to allow all posts from everyone and anyone, and then the high amount of spam email sent TO the lists would get through. (As an example, I get about 30 spams a day sent to my Jewel and Patty Griffin lists on smoe. They bounce to me for approval and of course I just trash them). If this suggestion meant to have majordomo/smoe add the .ecto part (it wasn't clear to me whom/what Brian intended to do the appending), I am not too sure Jeff could pull it off without a LOT of work and tweaking. I recall the three nights it took him to get the digests to show the email addresses in the summaries at the beginning of each digest...I was working with him in seeing how it looked on various email programs and in the online archives. I do not think Jeff has the time to devote to such a task right now. (not that I am speaking for Jeff, it's just that in our recent chats he's seemed to be terminally swamped) Mike ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 22:12:01 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: Address handling, was: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway Hi, Mike responded: >If this suggestion meant to have majordomo/smoe add the .ecto part (it >wasn't clear to me whom/what Brian intended to do the appending), I am not >too sure Jeff could pull it off without a LOT of work and tweaking. I >recall the three nights it took him to get the digests to show the email >addresses in the summaries at the beginning of each digest...I was working >with him in seeing how it looked on various email programs and in the >online archives. I do not think Jeff has the time to devote to such a task >right now. (not that I am speaking for Jeff, it's just that in our recent >chats he's seemed to be terminally swamped) Not that I can speak for Jeff either, but Mike made all the points I was about to make, before I had the chance to get to it. People tend to take for granted the vast amount of behind-the-scenes work that goes into keeping smoe.org going. The mailing list software that runs ecto, majordomo has its limitations. We're upgrading some of the lists hosted at smoe to majordomo2, but as the owner of one of the newly-upgraded mj2 lists I can definitively say that mj2 has its limitations too. I don't know if e-dress masking is within mj2's capabilities either. =============================================== Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth =============================================== Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://muzak.smoe.org =============================================== ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 21:30:05 -0500 From: "Amy" Subject: "New" artist Corrinne May Hi all. Someone just emailed me about this artist, Corrinne May. I took a listen to her sound samples at CD Baby and she's great! http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/corrinnemay http://www.corrinnemay.com/ Sorry if she's already been mentioned and I missed it! ~~Amy Producer, Collected Sounds - a Guide to Women in Music www.collectedsounds.com [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/ms-tnef which had a name of winmail.dat] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 22:55:27 -0400 From: "R. N. Dominick" Subject: Re: fa.music.ecto usenet gateway I do not wish to see the Usenet gateway removed, nor do I wish to see the web archives mung'd in any fashion. There is no privacy issue here; an open-subscription mailing list is a public forum just like a newsgroup or an open web-based message board. Perhaps if the existence of the Usenet gateway and web archives are not mentioned in the initial mailing to new members, they should be; that way, everyone would be notified as they join. ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 2003 13:03:07 +0800 From: Alan Subject: Re: Vienna Teng at Music Millenium in Portland On Tue, 2003-05-13 at 16:19, John Zimmer wrote: > Alan spake thusly: > With only the slight correction that the URL is: > > http://www.viennateng.com Argh. I was afraid that i would make that mistake... Oh well. - -- Alan ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V9 #134 **************************