Re: AMC List Privacy

[farna@xxxxxxx]

Ralph, hope you don't mind that I cross posted to the AMC-List since you had a legitimate question that concerns all. 

The old rules as posted on amxfiles.com state that the e-mail address should be in a post. I think it was just for convenience should someone want to contact an individual before the list was accessible from the web. I haven't changed anything, but won't require anyone to put their e-mail address up. I would prefer they at least put their name on the post. It's just good manners to let someone know who's talking. Alternately, you can put your e-mail in a signature file and do someting like use the word AT in place of @ or use # instead of @. A farming program will skip over it but a person should easily see what the "problem" is and fix it to send you an e-mail. But like I stated, because of security issues a name without an e-mail address is fine. That way if someone needs/wants to get in touch with you personally they can at least post a message asking you to send them an e-mail.

Only a few people have suspected the list (at least recently) as the source for SPAM, so it could be a filter on your ISP/e-mail server or any of the servers the list is routed through getting to you. The new server is much more secure, though there have been reliability issues in the past. None lately, knock on wood!! 

Hackers are sneaky critters!! I haven't had a problem with SPAM that can be traced back to the list in a long time (couple years at least), though I do get an occasional message that looks like it came from there. Probably someone getting addresses from the on-line archive manually. The free e-mail servers are bad about getting farmed, thought they try to stay on top of it.  Takes them a while to get farmers out since they are regularly attacked by them. What better place?? You shouldn't have any further problems with SPAM farmers on the list though. 

--
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Independent 
Magazine" (AIM)
For all AMC enthusiasts
http://farna.home.att.net/AIM.html
(free download available!)
			

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Winslow, Ralph (GE Trans)" <Ralph.Winslow@xxxxxxxxx>
> Frank,
> Can you explain this, at your convenience:
> 
> "I'll settle for at least a name (like Russ does) for the sake of privacy
> and security, though no one has "farmed" the AMC-list for e-mail addresses
> since verification is required to get on now........."
> I receive about a dozen junk e-mails a day at work as a result of my work
> e-mail address being farmed from the AMC List.  I have avoided posts, in
> fact I am not sure I even signed up to post since the server was changed
> years ago.  I read on line, reply to messages individually.  I am sure that
> I am not the only one, which may explain why "list membership is down".  I
> know you are on the Forum, and there is no requirement to post your e-mail
> on the Forum, why would it be necessary on your AMC-List?  I have been
> contacted by dozens of people legitimately in response to my AMC-List
> postings, so I regret that I can no longer actively participate.  The quote
> above leads me to think there is some security now that wasn't demonstrably
> insufficient before, is this the case?
> Thanks,
> Ralph
>