Administrivia

[aleph1 () SECURITYFOCUS COM (Elias Levy)]

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/