[GoLUG] Mailing list, long term.

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 14 Aug 2025 20:39:24 -0700
Ron <ron at bclug.ca> wrote:

> Steve Litt wrote on 2025-08-14 18:52:

> > Once formatted as a MindMeld tree, anybody can grab the tree with 
> > rsync as a backup, and if the admin quits or gets run over by a 
> > truck, the next admin can set up MindMeld with an untar, an edit of 
> > a conf file  
> 
> What happens if someone else decides to take over the list? i.e.
> moderate the current admin to not be allowed to post?

The whitelist and blacklist aren't readable from the outside. Only the
archive is readable (and downloadable) from the outside. So they can't
lock out the admin

> Or approve their spammer friend's account who then starts spamming?

Same thing, nobody but the admin can approve or lock out anybody.

HOWEVER...

As it's currently designed, a bad actor could make an evil clone of a
given MindMeld, which the bad actor admins, and the bad actor could
whitelist spammers and blacklist the real admin from the evil clone.
And if they were both on the same shared hosting facility, it might be
possible for both to be on the same IP address and port. When MindMeld
later gets TLS, I think that problem goes away. Let's hear from others:
What might be some methods to disallow two identically named MindMeld
servers on the same IP and port?

Truth be told, I never thought about an evil guy taking over, I only
thought about a disgruntaled member forking the list and keeping
everything the same, and I think peer group pressure would stop the
disgruntled member. But it wouldn't stop a genuine badguy.

> 
> i.e. where does the list config live and who controls it? Who bans
> spam addresses and how? How to prevent others from making changes?

Locally, accessible only by the admin. I'll find a way that people can
sign up for it with a non-valuable password and that will be kept
locally. With permissions set properly, only a real hacker could bust
in and modify the whitelist or blacklist.
 
> With Mailman, users have the option to hide their email address from 
> some levels of other users - say lurkers can hide that they've joined 
> from other list members.

The beauty is there's no email address involved. And judging from email
and IRC, nobody wants to hide their name handle, which they can make as
wierd as they want. It doesn't need to be stevelitt or ronbc. It can be
roaringmouse or tinylion.

> 
> Everyone having everything needed to continue the list defeats that 
> (minor issue).

I don't understand the preceding question.

> 
> 
> >> And Thunderbird these days handles it like a champ (pro tip: 
> >> choose Maildir for local storage too).

By the way, from the very beginning MindMeld's datastore was set to be
a broad, deep directory structure so no directory would have more than
a couple hundred entries, eliminating the huge delays when searching
through thousands of files in a directory. So MindMeld just might
retrieve faster than Maildir, I won't know until I do it.
  
> > 
> > I see what's going on. Your Thunderbird downloads from IMAP and 
> > stores in Thunderbird archives. My Thunderbird (or Claws or 
> > Evolution) is simply a window into a local Dovecot serving a 
> > ginormous maildir. Your way works with Thunderbird, mine doesn't.  
> 
> My Thunderbird downloads (synchronizes) certain folders, yes, but it
> also immediately picks up on what happens on the server, like when I
> run Python scripts against files on the server - they appear
> immediately in Thunderbird.
> 
> When you said:
> 
> > Dovecot serving a ginormous maildir  
> 
> did you mean a ginormous mbox file?

My Dovecot stores its messages in Maildir format. My .INBOX/cur has
12406 files covering 1/1/2022 through present. On Ext4, searching among
12K files takes significant time, and it adds up if done a lot. With
MindMeld, most directories would have less than 100 files, for
ultra-quick retrieval.

> 
> That'd probably make anything balk.

I never use mbox because there are different versions of it, and Stevie
don't play that.

> 
> Thunderbird can easily handle thousands of IMAP messages. People use
> it with hundreds of thousands of messages.

Then they know something I don't.


SteveT

Steve Litt 
Spring 2023 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques