Re: [BitPim-user] (no subject)

[Joe <jo...@ma...>]

Spam is really annoying, but discussing it shouldn't be a reason for us
to be uncivil to each other.

You bring up some valid points.  It is undoubtedly harder to spam a list
like this by chance.  Just for my own information, can you refer me to
some evidence that your assertions are true?

I belong to a number of non-technical lists that just can't be convinced
to use BCC and once my address has unnecessarily gone out to 30 or more
recipients for each list, it's vulnerability/availability goes up at
least geometrically, if not exponentially.

I would suggest a single warning email to the account (requiring a
timely "human" reply) before banning it.  People come to lists like this
for support and should not be banned lightly.

Of course, all of this is up to the moderator who is the only one who
can take such an action.

If he or she is good at reading email headers (I'm not), then a simple
address spoof could be detected.  But, if the address is spoofed, the
list still gets it, so it's a problem even if it isn't the poster's
fault.  Knowing that would at least allow the moderator to send out a
more polite banning message than "I don't like you and I don't like your
computer either." Or worse yet, no message at all.

1) People don't usually let their computers send other people's spam on
purpose.  Very often, they don't know it's happening.  If it's really a
spam account, then there will almost certainly be no reply to a
warning.  If they are informed, maybe they will correct the problem.

2) I've seen spam using my email address and I run Linux, which,
although it isn't invulnerable to such things, almost never gets
"hacked" this way.

In any case, "incompetent" people are not "bad" people and should be
treated politely, even though their incompetence may cause situations
like this that have to be addressed.

Joe

On 11/18/2012 09:50 AM, N4AOF wrote:
> Oh yes, it is always "someone else's" computer that "got hacked" -- 
> BS on both counts -- the vast majority of these spam infestations come
> from the person either getting malware on their computer or from the
> person having given away their account information in response to
> phishing, fake sites, social engineering, or harvesting programs that
> offer to 'consolidate' all your mail accounts.
>  
> The "someone else's computer" story CAN occasionally be true because
> some botnet malware does change the "from" address on the email
> (usually detectable in the headers) but that is rare overall and the
> odds are nearly astronomical in any closed mail list (like this one
> and Yahoo or Google Groups) because the changed "from" address would
> need to match someone on the subscriber list. 
>  
> Bottom line: When we see spam here, it almost certainly came from the
> account shown in the From address and usually the individual is far
> from blameless.
>  
> In any case, regardless of who might be at fault, there is only one
> reasonable response for the manager of any mail list -- once an
> address is used to send spam to the group, the manager needs to remove
> and ban that account from the list to prevent its use for continued
> spamming of the list members.
>  
>  
> *From:* Joe <mailto:jo...@ma...>
> *Sent:* Sunday, November 18, 2012 03:37 AM
> *To:* bit...@li...
> <mailto:bit...@li...>
> *Subject:* Re: [BitPim-user] (no subject)
>  
> Most of the time, somebody else got their computer hacked and all the
> email addresses harvested and used without ever touching any of their
> computers.  Teach people to use BCC instead of CC or TO for mailings
> so fewer addresses get unnecessarily propagated to vulnerable machines.
>
> On 11/17/2012 10:28 PM, Toby Fredrickson wrote:
>> That happened to my Daughter on my Comcast account. She apparently
>> switched over to "dookieprotect" (based on a fellow "stoodent"
>> claiming it was the best) or something like it as malware protection
>> and her box got zombied into a spam machine. We got it fixed. Any
>> reputable virus system should fix that.
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 7:01 PM, N4AOF <n4...@ar...
>> <mailto:n4...@ar...>> wrote:
>>
>>     Another idiot who wants to claim his Yahoo account was "hacked"
>>     because he can't explain why his computer is sending out spam.
>>      
>>      
>>
>
>
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