Lately | April 1, 2002

Lately, in Corinna...

April 1, 2002

Let's take a look back two years. This picture, taken from the the third floor of the Odd Fellows Hall, was posted on April 1, 2000. The mill demolition was almost complete. The old Main Street still existed but was partially blocked by jersey barriers. The mill pond and the middle dam were still intact.

Email addresses "harvested" from The Guest Book

It has again come to my attention that bulk emailers (spammers) are probably "harvesting" names and email addresses from the Guest Book on The Cattail Press. This means that email addresses posted there may be gathered and included in the huge lists of addresses used to send out those annoying commercial email messages, often called spam. You know the ones. The message arrives, addressed to you and 35 other people whose addresses also start with the same letter. All of you have been chosen as "finalists" in a contest to win a dream vacation trip! I believe most of these are bogus.

There are people who make a living visiting web sites, recording any email address they find and selling lists of addresses to "bulk emailers".

Often the harvesting is done using a computer program that automatically records anything that looks like an email address. It is the third class mail of the Internet.

I don't know of any way to stop this from happening, so I feel compelled to warn you. When you sign the Guest Book you may not want to include your email address. However, having email addresses posted there allows readers to contact each other. Many old friends have been reacquainted and new friendships formed. That is one of the best things about The Cattail Press. It seems a lot to give up. I guess nothing comes without a price.

-Ken