tz list searchable on Google

[Chuck Soper]

At 10:32 AM -0400 5/22/06, Olson, Arthur David \(NIH/NCI\) [E] wrote:
>I'm also worried about spam; that's why electronic mail addresses have
>been purged from the time zone distribution (and most especially from
>the source data files such as "northamerica" which end up on millions of
>computers worldwide).

Thank you for taking this action.

>The gmane site's archive of stuff that's gone out on the time zone
>mailing list extends back to July 2004; has tz-linked spam been seen
>since then?

Not that I know of. I don't think that the gmane mailing list archive 
currently poses a significant security threat.

>And...if the gmane mailing list archive is a bad thing, is the elsie
>ftpable mailing list archive also a bad thing (or is security through
>difficulty of use sufficient)?
>
>				--ado

I think that there are two issues. One is security (spam, etc.) and 
the other is exposure. I understand that the tz list is public, but 
this new archive exposes the tz list content to anyone with a web 
browser. For example, all tz list content can now be searched for on 
Google:
<http://www.google.com/search?&rls=en&q=Kirov+timezone+according+to+the+tz+database+is+GMT%2B3&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8>

This is a big change. I think that this very dramatic increase in 
exposure will eventually have a negative affect on the list. I have 
seen this happen to other lists. Right now the tz list is very 
focused and low volume. I like that.

Chuck