Klarinet Archive - Posting 000492.txt from 1998/07

From: Kenneth Wolman <kwolman@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] List addresses
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 21:58:51 -0400

At 06:39 PM 7/17/98 -0400, you wrote:
>I recently received a query asking if we (the admins) sold the Klarinet list
>members addresses. It seems that the amount of junk e-mail they received
>increased after joining the Klarinet list
>
>I'd like to make it clear that we do not sell any addresses from the
>Klarinet mailing list. In fact, it is much more difficult to get a listing
>of addresses now than it was before (generally, only the admins have access
>to the list of mail addresses).

It would never have occurred to me to think that a listowner--and I've been
on LOTS of lists--would ever sell or give away the addresses of members to
anyone, for whatever purpose. If you want to introduce two people, you ask
their permission.

But yes...it is really getting to be Spam City out there. I also post to
and read Klarinet from Morgan Stanley. Given the business we're in--it all
boils down to handling oodles of other people's money (you have to have $4
million in liquid assets just to get a Private Client Services account)--we
have firewalls to protect our firewalls. We screen our website access so
nobody can read the kinds of sleazoid sites that have made lots of people
associate the Internet with It's Dangerous To Our Children. Even email is
not secure from view if someone has a mind to audit your files. All the
same...I am good for two or three messages a week that offer to get me into
pyramid schemes, or that start off "Oooooo, big boy, my nipples get hard
just thinking about you!" I used to forward these things to our Security
department, but they can't trace them. SOMEHOW, the hackers and
crap-artists find ways to spoof legitimate addresses and scale our
firewalls. I have less than no idea of how. But, the porno sites aside,
the offers to Sell You Stuff, get you a Guaranteed Income For Life, or
enroll you in something that makes Amway look like Morgan Stanley:-) get
through, luck of the draw, and you can be sure that my employer is not
selling our names to spammers.

The best one was about two years ago, when I got a very well-written piece
of mail that began talking about immigration problems, and then descended
into a still well-written attack on Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Asians,
Catholics, and anyone who doesn't live in a survivalist camp in northern
Montana. The security director's phone was ringing off the hook. The mail
landed on several hundred workstations in New York, and also at random
employees' workstations in London, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.

It ain't the listowners, folks. It's <giggle-giggle> the Dark Side of Free
Enterprise.

Ken

"The East River. But it was not a river at all. Merely a column of water
connecting the upper harbor to the Sound. Yet everyone called it a river.
They chose not to think about it. They clung to the surface of things."
--Peter Quinn, "Banished Children of Eve"
Ken Wolman kwolman@-----.com/SoHo/Gallery/1649

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