[KLUG Members] email question

[Mike Williams]

Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> 
> They might think so,  it won't help - if you can reply so can the 
> SPAMers.  Address hiding is just silly, and in the end counter 
> productive;  it creates a communication medium which can't be used
> for communication.  Anyway,  you can find my e-mail address in a
> jizillion places, and yet I get almost no SPAM whatsoever;  SPAM is a
> solved problem through simple mechanisms on the the server.

In this case, apparently it CAN be used as a communication medium, since
replies get where they're going.  It probably is an attempt at stopping 
spam, but I can't see how it would accomplish anything.

Spam is not, however, a "solved problem through simple mechanisms". 
There are systems that do a pretty good job, but it's far from simple to 
write them, they all have an occasional false positive (legitimate mail 
flagged as spam), and they all let some spam through.  Email services 
that send spam are becoming big business, and it is a constant battle 
between the senders trying to get through the filters and the filter 
makers trying to stay ahead of them.  Who will win in the long run (if 
anyone) is far from obvious at this point.

<aside>Gotta feel sorry for Hormel, though.  They're an amazingly good 
sport about how the name of their product has been adopted as a near 
profanity on the Internet.</aside>