Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2005 10:52:22 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Freebies List Spammed
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 10:11 AM 7/27/05 -0400, dicconf wrote:
>
>On Tue, 26 Jul 2005, Mike B. wrote:
>
>> At 03:12 PM 7/26/05 -0400, dicconf wrote:

>>> No, hyou just need to be on the voters' rolls.
>>
>> Umm...your voter registration people have your e-mail address??  Who's
>> fault is that?
>
>Probably the 'Net's.  The idea is that the Repubs & Demos get copies of
>the lists of qualified voters -- which are public record -- and then look
>up their e-ddresses.

How?  Where?  There is no central repository of e-dresses (not outside of
NSA anyway).  There is no way to link a particular person to a particular
e-ddress without access to proprietary data at each ISP that supports the
particular e-ddresses.  You can get that with a court order, or through
illegal means (like bribing employees at those companies), but not
otherwise that I'm aware of.  All major, and probably all minor, ISPs have
privacy policies that prohibit that sort of thing.  There are also those of
us who handle our own e-mail processing, so even the ISP doesn't have the
person<->e-ddress info...I do.

>If you vote in a Primary you're obviously a live one.

Yes, and they may be able to get your mailing address, but not your e-mail
address...unless you are volunteering that info.

>I suspect NOW got my name from either NARAL or the Clinic Defense
>Task Force, both which I gave my e-ddress so they could let me know when
>we needed to go out and agitate for women's rights.

If those you trust with the info are sharing it, that's a very different
thing.  I tend not to give out my main one to those without a privacy
policy that prohibits that...if I need to give them something and they
don't, I make up a separate alias for them...that way I can track who they
give it to, and if it gets annoying, just delete the alias and let it all
bounce.  So far I haven't seen much sharing at all, and none from those
with privacy policies.

If you are posting to newsgroups or on mailing lists it's much more likely
that your address was "harvested" by some other member, or a 'bot, in the
same way that SPAMmers get them.  It's not unknown for some person you've
pissed off to sign you up with various groups that you wouldn't like much
just to annoy you.  That's why all *reputable* and *net-wise* groups don't
allow a simple signup for their mailings...they send a confirmation message
to the address requesting it, and if they don't get confirmation they drop
the name.  That prevents 3rd party subscriptions and a lot of angry e-mail.

-- Mike B.
--
I'm not from cyberspace...I just work there.