The article was already on this list and I saved it for future reference.
> On 28 Nov 2016, at 01:02, M. Taylor <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Hello All,
> 
> A member on the V iPhone list kindly provided a link to an article that was 
> published in the New York Times, regarding this iCalendar Spam problem.  
> 
> I will paste it in, here, for your reference.
> 
> Mark
> 
> Fighting iOS Calendar Spam
> 
> November 25, 2016
> 
> Tech Tip
> 
> By J. D. BIERSDORFER
> 
> Question:
> I have been getting spam invitations to my iOS calendar recently. They come 
> from Chinese accounts and their subjects are for super-discounted Ray-Bans 
> and the like. Is there any solution to this?
> 
> Answer:
> Many iCloud users have recently reported an influx of spam in the form of iOS 
> calendar events and iCloud Photo Sharing invitations. While the delivery 
> mechanism is different, the calendar and photo-sharing invitations traffic in 
> the same old suspect offers for cheap goods as the junk mail and text 
> messages that came before. Unlike those older forms of spam, which can be 
> filtered, blocked or deleted, invitation spam usually offers Accept, Decline 
> (or Maybe) as your options — all of which notify the spammer that your 
> account is live and ready for more unsolicited offers.
> 
> While an Ignore button is currently not available so you can quietly bury 
> these unwanted invitations, dedicated users have come up with least two 
> workarounds for the calendar garbage. (For the junk photo-sharing offers, 
> turning off the iCloud Photo Sharing feature in your iOS Photos & Camera or 
> iCloud settings seems to be the only avoidance option at the moment.)
> 
> To ditch calendar spam you have already received, open the Calendar app, tap 
> the Calendars button at the bottom of the screen and then tap the Edit 
> button. On the next screen, select the Add Calendars option and give the new 
> calendar a name like Spam, Junk or something therapeutically snarky. Tap the 
> Done button at the top of the screen a few times until you arrive back on the 
> Calendar screen.
> 
> Select the spam invitation and move it to the new calendar you just made, and 
> then repeat the steps for all the unwanted invitations. When you are done, 
> tap the Calendars button at the bottom of the screen. Tap the lowercase “i” 
> icon next to the spam calendar, and on the next screen, swipe down and tap 
> Delete Calendar to flush the added spam without responding to it.
> 
> To make the spam invitations go to your iCloud mail — where they can be 
> filtered or deleted more easily — instead of going right to your calendar, 
> log onto your iCloud account on the web. Open the Calendar app, click the 
> gear-shaped Settings icon in the lower-left corner and choose Preferences. In 
> the Preferences box, click the Advanced tab, and under Invitations, click the 
> button to have all calendar invitations go to your email account instead of 
> your calendar. Click the Save button before you leave the screen.
> 
> Original article located at:
> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/technology/personaltech/fighting-ios-calendar-spam.html?_r=0&referer=https://www.google.com/
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] 
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of M. Taylor
> Sent: Friday, November 25, 2016 6:46 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: A Question About Spam Calendar Event Invitations
> 
> Hello Everyone,
> 
> Just so you know, I am cross-posting this email.
> 
> Earlier today, I received a calendar sales event invitation from an unknown 
> sender.  Upon opening the invitation from within my iOS Calendar app, it was 
> clear that this was a spammer as I could see the list of invitees all of 
> which were just variations on a theme, for example [email protected], 
> [email protected], etc.
> 
> The event invitation was promoting a weekend sale for sunglasses and the 
> like.  As a result, the event appeared across three different days, 
> corresponding to the length of the event/sale; extremely annoying, to say the 
> least.
> 
> The only buttons I could find upon which to act was either Accept button, the 
> maybe button, and the decline button.
> 
> I did not want to activate any of these buttons as doing so would send a 
> response to the sender, confirming the existence of my account.  
> 
> Try as I may, I could not discover anyway to simply delete the event 
> invitation, itself, or the corresponding events from my Calendar, in iOS.  
> 
> Just so you know, When I activated the button that linked to the sender, 
> whose account/email address consisted of Chinese characters, all I could do 
> was to either add the sender to my Contacts List, share my location, etc.
> There was no option to block the sender nor anyway to report the event 
> invitation as spam.
> 
> Believe it or not, the most annoying thing, however, was not that the event 
> was added to my Calendar, for the duration of the event, it was that it 
> showed as an event to which I needed to reply.  This means that the number 1 
> was constantly displayed on the Calendar's badge-app, icon.  
> 
> I called Apple Care but, after waiting on hold for what seemed like an 
> interminable length of time, I decided to go it alone.  
> 
> At first, I thought about firing up my Mac and seeing if I could discover a 
> way to delete the event from there.  However, to be honest, my luck with the 
> Mac OS Calendar application, has never been spectacular.  Add to that, the 
> fact that I was extremely angry at Apple for not providing some way to delete 
> an event invitation without having to select an option that would alert the 
> sender that any action on my part, had taken place.
> 
> My solution?  
> 
> I simply fired up a Windows 7 PC that has the iCloud Control Panel for 
> Windows installed, launched Microsoft Outlook 2007, located the offending 
> invitation, and hit the delete key on the keyboard.  Not including booting up 
> the PC and launching Outlook, the deletion process took less than 10 seconds. 
>  
> 
> When next I looked at my iOS Calendar, the invitation, along with its 
> corresponding footprint, had been deleted, as expected.
> 
> Question:  Have any of you encountered spam Calendar event invitations?  If 
> so, how did you handle it?  Were you able to delete the invitation without
> activating the Accept, Maybe, or Decline buttons?   
> 
> The only thing I wish I had attempted, before resorting to my beloved Windows 
> PC, was to have explored the iCloud.com website to see if, perhaps there may 
> have been a delete button somewhere that would have accomplished my goal.
> 
> I look forward to your replies,
> 
> Mark
> 
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