Subject: Re: Supressing Address Lists?

From: [email-masked] (Alan J Flavell)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 1995 19:32:32 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>
[email-masked] (John Stanley) writes:
 
>In article <[email-masked]>,
>Paul O Bartlett  <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>On 14 Dec 1995, John Stanley wrote (excerpt):
>>: 2. No, you do not need to put a To: header in mail that contains a BCC.
>>: There is no reason to send it to yourself.
>>
>>    The purpose for putting _something_ in the To: field is purely
>>functional.  Some people have had the experience that if they leave To:
>>blank and use a group of addresses in Bcc:, then somewhere along the line
>>all the Bcc: addressees get listed in an Apparently-to: manufactured
>>header, which gives away the game.
>
>Are you sending email or playing a game? What "game" is being given
>away?
 
I find this a rather intemperate response.  I have no idea whether
the poster was literally "playing a game", or merely chose an unfortunate
idiom.  What I do know is that when I get a short ten-line annoucement
that a colleague has, very properly, sent to 100 recipients, I sure
do not want to have a 100-recipient list of email addresses displayed
to me and stored in my mail archives.
 
>Are you saying that the mail system is failing to keep the addresses in
>a BCC list a secret from other members of the BCC list?  Well, yes,
>there is no requirement for this secret to be kept.
 
In which case you would seem to think that BCC is functionally
equivalent to CC.
 
I certainly use and recommend the scheme of putting oneself on the
"to" field, and the distribution list on the BCC field.
 
>A quick and dirty workaround to an imaginary problem.
 
In just what way is the problem "imaginary"?
 
It's a real problem to me: I have acres of mail archives filled
with unwanted address lists, prefixing the wanted messages, from
senders who were unaware of the useful advice given above.  Now,
it may well be that this technique can also be misused (mail
bombing) but then, that is quite another matter, and there are
plenty of other ways of misusing email, all of which I certainly
despise.  But let's not despise a useful technique for the sole
reason that it is capable of being misused.
 
best regards

---

From: [email-masked] (John Stanley)
Date: 17 Dec 1995 08:13:37 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Alan J Flavell <[email-masked]> wrote:
>I have no idea whether
>idiom.  

It was an unfortunate idiom because it didn't have a meaning. "Giving
away the game" means what? 

>What I do know is that when I get a short ten-line annoucement

Did I say you had to? Why are you complaining to me rather than to your
colleague? Tell your colleague how to properly distribute a mailing list
and you won't get 100 name address lists in your mail.

>In which case you would seem to think that BCC is functionally

If you wish to see an intemperate response, please continue to tell me
what I seem to believe. I believe no such thing. Perhaps you should read
and understand the RFC before you talk about header functionality. CC is
not the same as BCC.

>"to" field, and the distribution list on the BCC field.

You can use what you want. You should stop recommending it, because
there is no guarantee that it will work the way you want it to. Given
that there are mechanisms that will do what you want, recommending this
to others is irresponsible.

And please don't make the claim that something MUST be put on the To:
line, because that is demonstrably false.
 
>In just what way is the problem "imaginary"?

What an intemperate response. How dare you ask me what I meant.
 
>senders who were unaware of the useful advice given above. 

I'm sorry. I thought that most computer systems came with an editor that
you could remove unwanted material from files with.

And which "useful advice" are you referring to? The correct way to make
sure that long lists don't show up in mail, or the one where you keep
putting the long lists into your mail and hoping that someone takes them
out for you?

And how do you know they were unaware? How do you know that it wasn't
just a problem of the mailer not removing the list that it doesn't have
to?

>reason that it is capable of being misused.

Excuse me? Where did I say this? Where did I say I despised anything, or
that I was "despising it" because it could be misused?

No, I will certainly "despise" a technical slution to a problem when it
is not a solution to the problem and there is a simple solution handy.
Nothing in that statement said anything about misuse.

---

From: [email-masked] (Richard E. Freeman)
Date: 14 Dec 1995 00:46:48 GMT

To use pine to run an email list with 100 addresses or more how would you 
keep from sending enormous headers containing the whole list of 
subscribers to everyone on the list? I'm talking about using the 
addressbook's list creation option.

Thanks,

--
Rich Freeman

---

From: [email-masked] (John Stanley)
Date: 18 Dec 1995 20:25:32 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Richard E. Freeman <[email-masked]> wrote:
>John Stanley ([email-masked]) wrote:
>
>: A better way of running an email list is to create an alias that has
>: all the names, in a file which the list manager can edit. Then you
>: simply send the mail to that alias. Nobody sees anyone else's address,
>: all they see is the list address.
>
>Sounds good but could you be a little more specific? What do
>you mean "send the mail to that alias"? I can handle creating an alias 
>file full of addresses, but I'm not clear where to go from there.

1. In the system aliases file, have your admin create the following
entries:

listname: :include:/some/file/you/can/edit
owner-listname: your@address
listname-request: your@address

2. In the file /some/file/you/can/edit, put all the addresses you want
on your list.

3. Send your mail to listname.

---

From: [email-masked] (Steve Inners)
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 15:15:38 GMT

Richard E. Freeman ([email-masked]) wrote:
: John Stanley ([email-masked]) wrote:

: : A better way of running an email list is to create an alias that has
: : all the names, in a file which the list manager can edit. Then you
: : simply send the mail to that alias. Nobody sees anyone else's address,
: : all they see is the list address.

: Sounds good but could you be a little more specific? What do
: you mean "send the mail to that alias"? I can handle creating an alias 
: file full of addresses, but I'm not clear where to go from there.

I have found that certain transport agents have a limitation on the 
number of addresses that can be allocated to a specific alias.  What I 
have done in the past to work around this problem is to create an alias 
that contains aother aliases in it:

much like this:

denver:	[email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
sanfran: [email-masked], [email-masked]

all: denver, sanfran

Assume that the lists are too long for the transport agent ... the alias 
"all" avoids the problem by creating a manageable list of other aliases.  
Address resolution still occurs and the "To:" field contains only the 
address "all" ....  Of course these aliases are created behind PINE in 
the o/s' level of the mail program.  If you do not have access to this 
level, you would have to discuss it with your system administrator.
-- 
-Steve				[email-masked]
###################################################
     	      I brew, therefore I am.

---

From: [email-masked] (Richard E. Freeman)
Date: 18 Dec 1995 06:03:41 GMT

--
Rich Freeman

---

From: [email-masked] (John Stanley)
Date: 15 Dec 1995 23:04:34 GMT

Are you saying that the mail system is failing to keep the addresses in
a BCC list a secret from other members of the BCC list?  Well, yes,
there is no requirement for this secret to be kept. Mail systems are
free to put the entire list of BCC addresses in each copy sent to a BCC
list member. Even in mail which has a To: header, the BCC recipients may
find the list of other BCC recipients.

>Just how this happens I am unsure, but 
>making some kind of entry, such as yourself, in the To: field seems to be 
>a quick and dirty workaround.

A quick and dirty workaround to an imaginary problem. Why not just do it
the right way and not worry about "secrets" and "games" and trying to
fool mail systems?

---

From: Paul O Bartlett <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 09:26:32 -0500

> addressbook's list creation option.

    Rather than specify the whole list in the To: field, put it in the 
Bcc: field.  Then each recipient will only see his/her address in the 
header.  In this case, you must put _something_ in the To: header, so 
just put yourself there.  Be aware that some mail transport agents choke 
on address lists which are larger than a certain size (Pine is a mail 
_user_ agent), so sending out a single piece of mail to gargantuan 
numbers of recipients can be a dicey proposition on some host systems.  
This isn't Pine's fault.

Paul
--------------------------------------------------
Paul O. Bartlett         <[email-masked]>
P. O. Box 857     Vienna, VA 22183-0857     U.S.A.
Finger, keyserver, or WWW for PGP 2.6.2 public key
     URL: http://www.access.digex.net/~pobart     
--------------------------------------------------

---

From: Paul O Bartlett <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 10:15:01 -0500

: >    Rather than specify the whole list in the To: field, put it in the 
: >Bcc: field.  Then each recipient will only see his/her address in the 
: >header.  In this case, you must put _something_ in the To: header, so 
: 
: 2. No, you do not need to put a To: header in mail that contains a BCC.
: There is no reason to send it to yourself.

header, which gives away the game.  Just how this happens I am unsure, but 

Paul

---

From: [email-masked] (John Stanley)
Date: 14 Dec 1995 19:53:39 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
>header.  In this case, you must put _something_ in the To: header, so 

1. If you read the specifications for the BCC header, you will note that
there is no guarantee that each user in the BCC list will see only his
own address there. BCC is meant to be kept secret from the primary and
secondary addressees, but not from other BCC recipients.

2. No, you do not need to put a To: header in mail that contains a BCC.
There is no reason to send it to yourself.

A better way of running an email list is to create an alias that has
all the names, in a file which the list manager can edit. Then you
simply send the mail to that alias. Nobody sees anyone else's address,
all they see is the list address.