[Buddha-l] Make the subscription list visible to subscribers?

[Richard Hayes]

> To be seen or not...
> all fine with me as long as you can assure me Enron and McDonalds do
> not know anything about it.

I just checked the subscription list and noted that neither Enron or MacDonalds is subscribed to buddha-l. Neither is the department of Homeland Security. Even Sean Hannity seems not to be subscribed, although he could be using an alias. 

The visibility of names to subscribers may, however, raise a red flag for some old-timers who recall the way things used to be. In former incarnations of buddha-l, it was possible for someone to download the entire subscription list. It happened a few times that someone would subscribe and then unsubscribe fifteen seconds later; during their fifteen seconds of precious buddha-l denizenship, the subscriber (probably an automated spider) would download the subscription list and load it into a spam cannon. Then everyone on the buddha-l list would get a cordial invitation to buy a range of affordable cures for erectile dysfunction from a Canadian pharmacy. That sort of automated spammery was annoying. It is no longer possible. At least, it is no longer as easy as it used to be.

If the subscription list were made visible to other subscribers, it would still give other subscribers access only to a database in which they would have to do intelligent searches. It is not possible (as far as I know) to download the entire list of subscribers' addresses. Moreover, addresses are made visible in a form that a reasonably clever human being can easily read and interpret but that a spybot would have some degree (but actually not a huge amount) of difficulty with. Addresses appear like this: dayamati at gmail dot com. (That would take a spybot a good half a nanosecond to convert into a usable address.)

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