PREVENT MESSAGE ARCHIVING (if you must)

From kwall@kurtwerks.com Mon Dec 18 12:24:24 2000

Hi, list,

Someone contacted me off list (sigh) asking how to prevent their
messages to the list from being archived. After explaining that
most email is insecure and easily snooped, I explained how. It
occurs to me some here might, as pointless as it seems, wish to
do the same. Thus, to prevent this question from coming up again,
I offer the following:

If you wish to prevent your email messages, especially to mailing
list messages, use your mail client's configuration utility or file
to add the following header to message you don't want archived:

X-No-Archive: yes

mail-archive.com, the service that archives this list, also honors
this header:

Restrict: no-external-archive

Personally, I see no point in not archiving your messages. In the
first place, most, if not all, email messages pass through at least
one insecure server, so they are easily snooped (caveat: encrypted
messages are a different matter, but this list doesn't support
them). More to the point, if the unarchived message solves a
problem, saving it in the archive will let the next person find
it and prevent yet another FAQ being sent to the list.

Search