passwords and such

[NW Mailing List]

All:

I agree 100% that NO passwords should be plain "spanglish." Period.

As one respondent has mentioned, oftentimes people use those same passwords
on other things in their own systems and besides, what real purpose is
served by spelling them out and as Mister Stone has so eloquently stated,
it is a BAD practice, period. There is no good reason for it and it
accomplishes nothing.

No matter what version of which programs are used, it opens a potential
door to something which is not needed.

Bob Cohen


Mailman (the software that runs this mailing list) passwords are normally
system generated. Unless you have changed it for some reason, it has
nothing to do with any password you use elsewhere. Just pretend it?s called
something other than a password. And it is very bad practice to use the
same password multiple places. If you are doing that, you should start
changing them right away.

Not all passwords need the same level of protection. If I were to learn a
system generated mailing list password, about the worst I could do is
unsubscribe you from the list. I can?t steal your money or your identity
with it or do anything that would cause you any harm other causing you to
miss a few messages from the list.

That all said, the monthly emailing of list passwords should be turned off.
There is no good reason for it. I think even one of the current Mailman
developer agrees (I have exchanged emails with him as a few years back, I
contributed some documentation to the project). But the version of Mailman
that this list is being run on (2.1.29) is essentially in maintenance mode
with only critical fixes being made; most effort is on the new version 3.
And since version 2 is in maintenance mode, it?s not worth the effort to
remove an easily turned off feature since there is risk that removing it
would break something else.

--
Larry Stone
lstone19 at stonejongleux.com
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