On Fri, Sep 08, 2006 at 07:43:35PM -0700 or thereabouts, Tony Alfrey wrote:
On Friday 08 September 2006 06:26 pm, Peter Van Lone wrote:
What is the point of "hiding" the unsubscribe address in the header?
Peter
I think it is because the unsubscribe address is 'personalized' (has ones own e-mail address within the link). But you'll not get me to argue with the thought that there has to be a better way ;-)
It is not "personalized" at all. The list runs on EZMLM and it uses VERP. It is very modern as opposed to the other list managers. That is to say, it cleans itself from dead subscribers, by sending out probes after a certain amount of returned email. If the probe does not get through, it drops the user. This makes life very easy for the list admin, especially when dealing with millions of emails over many lIsts. Why some people have difficulty unsubscribing is because the list uses the envelope sender to subscibe, NOT the From: address... these can, and are often different email addresses, if you have or use an advanced email client that will do this, e.g. Mutt and many others that allow this feature. What does this all mean... you can use any email address to post to the list, any fake From: address is shown to the list, while hiding your secret subscribed email address to send (the envelope sender)... This way, when the list is harvested by spammers, and they capture addresses, they will not get your real email address.. -- Henry