On Tue, 11 Jan 2000 18:46:11 EST, Roger Fajman <[log in to unmask]> said: > One reason is that it keeps taking longer and longer to rebuild the web > interface, during which time LISTSERV isn't responsive. Also, there Amen. I can sympathise with this. However, a carefully written 'find' command will suffice for fixing THIS issue. > are strong legal reasons to not want archives for some closed, private > lists to stay around forever. The Microsoft case is just the most > recent example of stored email being used against its owner in court. Remember however - Colonel North got strung up based on PROFS notes recovered *from backup tapes*. Also, on most systems, deleted files are merely freed, not actually cleared, allowing disk scavenging. It is *well* outside Listserv's responsibilty to impose security policy on unwanted archives. In fact, under most Unix systems, the 'listserv' userid should *NOT* have the system access privileges needed to truly do this correctly. (For instance, under AIX, using the "compressed file system", you can't even re-write the file and be sure of re-writing the same blocks. If your patterns compress differently, different disk blocks may be allocated - you need to actually grovel around in the inodes and find the allocations and write to the raw disk - a scary prospect indeed). That's overlooking the fact that they can still subpoena the files out of the recipient's message stores - I know *I* have some mail that dates back to 1986 or so.... Valdis Kletnieks Operating Systems Analyst Virginia Tech