[nfbwatlk] spam messages

[Mike Freeman]

Humberto:

Keep your shirt on!  Nothing sinister is afoot.  I went through all the messages held for approval by the list operator and let a couple through.  This information is presented in a huge table.  I accidentally checked a checkbox that allowed the spam message through.  There are spam filters on the list which are very effective but the messages are held in case the spam-fighting software makes an error.

If you had read through the rest of your messages before popping off, you'd have found out that I apologized for the mistake.  No one is grabbing your address although, in truth, simply by participating in a public list, you are leaving yourself open to harvesting of your address.  The NFB list software does some minimal obscuring of the address but an intelligent spambot could probably figure it out.

This may seem a bit harsh.  I wouldn't be landing on you except that every time David Andrewsor those who help him accidentally let a spam message through, people go hysterical, thinking that something awful is happening to them.  While understandable, it's extremely exasperating to those of us who administer lists.  Truly you are lucky there isn't *more* spam getting through.

On the other side of the coin, if posters would heed the List Rules and Administrivia posts and post only from the addresses they subscribed from, David or I wouldn't have to go thru and manually vet their posts.

How about let's all exercise a bit of sanity and sophistication, huh?

Mike Freeman, Assistant List Administrator




On Mar 23, 2011, at 16:19, "Humberto Avila" <hum4avila_71 at fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Hello Listers,
> 
> We definitely need to fight off spam out of this list. Yet, I don't
> understand why and how these spammers get the information for sending to a
> mailing list. isn't it trickier to send spam messages to a whole mailing
> list instead of to a single person? did that spammer subscribed to this
> mailing list and then sent this message?
> I think sending spam messages to a mailing list is worse than sending spam
> messages to one person only. sending spam to a mailing list sends the spam
> message to even hundreds of people subscribed to it.
> let's fight the spam!
> 
> "We learn more from our failures than through our successes."
> --Dr. Denise Robinson, Teacher of the blind
> 
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