When BUGTRAQ was first created its charter called it a list to discuss UNIX vulnerabilities. Not much time passed before the list discussed vulnerabilities in other platforms such as VMS, routers and other network aware devices. As more Windows 95/98 and Windows NT machines came online we started covering vulnerabilities on those systems. While this expansion of the original charter was natural given the heterogeneous environment we are in and the fact that the nature of vulnerabilities is the same regardless of platform, it has also meant that some people get to read email messages that do not apply to them and that they are not interested in receiving. Its been a common request for some time now to implement some type of filtering. I've always been weary of doing so for fear of balkanizing the list but it seems that the are enough people that would like to see something that do at least conduct a poll. So here are the questions for you: Would you like to see some mechanism that would allow you to filter BUGTRAQ traffic by platform? What platforms would you suggest to filer by (e.g. Windows NT, Linux)? Respond to me, not to the list. Please note that whatever we do, if we decide to do anything, nothing will change unless you wish to filter the content you receive. You will stay subscribed to BUGTRAQ and receive all messages just like you do now. You will not miss any content. The Mechanics. We have looked at a couple of ways of implementing this functionality and given the capabilities of LISTSERV and subscriber behavior we feel this is the most sensible way do to it. If there is a large group of people that would like to see the filtering in place this is how it would work. We would create a set of new mailing lists to which posts from BUGTRAQ would be forwarded if they matched the particular topic. That means if you wanted to see only that topic you would unsubscribe from BUGTRAQ and subscribe to the other list. You would not be able to submit messages to the filtered lists. Comments? -- Elias Levy Security Focus http://www.securityfocus.com/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 13 2001 - 15:07:08 PDT