[META] [Elecraft] Yet another Elecraft archive

[David Woolley]

G4ILO wrote:
> Wondering why spam has started arriving at this email address, which I set up
> specifically to use for this reflector, I searched for it on Google. I found
> the address in an archive of the reflector on Google Groups
> (http://groups.google.com/group/elecraft-archive). Unfortunately, in this
> archive, all email addresses are in clear and therefore accessible to

They are not in the clear.  The tail end of the username is replaced by 
"...".  On the other hand, the obfuscation on qth.net is so trivial that 
I'm sure that most spambots de-obfuscate it without any thought these 
days.  I believe that qth.net is big enough to be worth specific 
targetting by spammers, although Google is, obviously, a prime target.

Spammers also subscribe to legitimate lists.  Although that is mainly to 
spam through them, I'm sure they capture email addresses whilst they are 
doing it.

The other big threat, and possibly the biggest threat in this case, is 
that another member of the list will have had their PC compromised, in 
which case you can assume that all the addresses in their address book 
will be known to spammers; many email clients automatically add new 
addresses, and the actual mailboxes can also be trawled.

Unless you only communicate with a closed circle of PC security experts, 
you should work on the principle that the spammers will find you, 
sooner, or later.

> spambots.


-- 
David Woolley
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.