On Thu, 23 Jul 1992 13:47:00 EDT you said:
>At my computing center, when a user leaves the organization their old
>account is usually re-assigned to a new employee.  If the departing
>user failed to unsubscribe from all lists, then the new user might
>get list mail that he/she didn't subscribe to, and so might complain
>about it to the list or the listowner.
 
My first reaction was why doesn't the postmaster simply do an unsub *
(netwide for any account whose holder is leaving (along with changing
the password, of course).  Then on reading other messages along this
thread, I realized that the postmaster (indeed no one at the computer
center) may be aware of the change in ownership.
 
We've got lots of administrative accounts assigned to offices (sometimes
with exciting userid's like OFFICE1 and OFFICE2--really :)  Those
accounts tend to get handed from person to person and are routinely
renewed by the department annually.  Our marketing department has had
the same administrative account ideas through four department heads and
three administrative assistants.
 
I can well see the *potential* security issues.  On the other hand, this
is a university, not a business or government agency.  What have we got
to steal?  I don't think there's a file accessible by either of those
accounts that wouldn't be considered as dull as library paste by anyone
other than the files owner (or whoever the administrative staff created
it for).  We're not dealing with student records or payrolls with these
accounts.
 
A couple of years ago, our Computer Center became concerned enough about
"security" to put in one of those excessively paranoid programs
requiring layers of crypto code to access files on one account by
another account owned by the same person (even though our most serious
breach ever was in the nature of one student letting their account be
used by their significant other and then complaining when it ran out of
its over modest allotment of "funny money").  The previous simple
password system for accounts and disk volumes was entirely sufficient
for every academic user I know.  The current system is a giant pain in
the **s that simply delays getting anything useful done (thank heavens
for desktop workstations--I no longer use the mainframe for much more
than mail and will be happy when I can by-pass it even for that).
 
Security is a problem for system staff users and those who do handle
student, personnel, and payroll records.  The rest of us would be happy
if they would keep their esoteric precautions to themselves and leave
us with something substantially less user hostile.
 
On John's original comment: I generally ignore unsub messages posted to
the list unless there's some indication that the person did try to send
a command to the LISTSERV and got a "you're not subscribed" message.
Sometimes I send them a mildly grumpy "perhaps you hit the wrong key
when you sent that message to the list instead of to the server" message
(some people do appear to have problems using anything other than the
'reply' function :)  I had one user tell me she was too busy to learn
how to unsub (and therefore I should do it for her, I guess)--I have a
thermite flame thrower for that sort of mail ;-)  The problem really is
that folks with only limited exposure to lists haven't comprehended how
tiresome the doofus mail (including the ever popular "this is a test")
gets after awhile.
 
I try and head the problem off (it works to some extent) by sending out
an "it's near the end of the semester" message congratulating the
survivors and telling them about unsub * (netwide -- and have a nice
vacation...
 
[for those of you who didn't take the chemistry course: thermite is a
combustible mix of aluminum and ferrous oxide <aka rust> that when
ignited by a magnesium wick burns hot enough to cut through six inches
of carbon steel in seconds; the military uses it to take out whole file
cabinets full of classified documents in an emergency; hot stuff indeed]
 
/s Murph Sewall <[log in to unmask]>