List Archive (Was: Re: p2p, anonymity and security)

[Rich Braun]

Derek Martin wrote:
> I would prefer that the archives were available, but with e-mail
> addresses removed...

I like having the address posted.  Every now and then I get a legit email from
someone who saw one of my postings to the list.  They can then get help from
me.  That's what the Internet was all about, years ago.  Even today, the #1
most popular application of the 'net is email (even if you subtract out those
for whom it's popular solely because they can transmit noise).

Since December, my daily spam flow has gone up from about 180/day to about
225/day.  Can-Spam legislation hasn't done diddly to slow down the exponential
increase which started about 3 years ago.

However I have faith that at some point the flow can't continue rising: 
response rates to spam will drop as the number of messages increases,
eventually reaching a saturation point where it doesn't return enough $$$ to
an advertiser to make it worth paying a spam-hosting company its fees.  Maybe
I'll be getting 10,000 messages daily by that point, but somehow I expect that
it will be sooner than that.

If you want strangers to have access to your emailbox, you need to publish
your email address.  Some other solution is needed besides unlisted phone
numbers (like what the cell-phone industry has done, a mistake which IMHO will
ultimately be corrected).

-rich