Some readers directed my attention to several "kiddie porn" spam emails sent to Tango-L this morning.
As you know, most spam is sent from fake email addresses and hence never makes it to the list (which requires that one be subscribed in order to post), but this was apparently a "real" one, since it needs to receive a confirmation email in order to subscribe and consequently to post. After receiving the confirmation, a test message was sent to the list to see if it worked, followed by the spam emails. Some or part of this process was probably done by an automated script. The Tango-L list was probably chosen at random among others--it is highly unlikely that the spammer is part of any Tango community. The following actions have been taken: 1. That particular user has, of course, been blocked (although it is not likely that the same person will try again with the same email address). 2. A request has been sent to the server maintainers to remove the offending items from the archives, although this won't be instant (although I have got an acknowledgement from them). 3. New subscribers to the list are now moderated by default. Generally a spammer will not go through the trouble of sending several legitimate emails on a subject as obscure (to most people) as Tango in order to get off moderation and send spam. Many lists do this by default for just this reason (and secondariy to catch some newbie-poster errors), though Tango-L hasn't had to until now. This does create some inconvenience for both legitimate new posters who have their posts delayed, and for the list administrators who have to review these additional posts. (It is theoretically possible that a spammer has already subscribed and thus won't be blocked by this "new subscriber on moderation" method and is lying in wait to spam at a later date, but I doubt it--spammers typically don't have that kind of attention span.) Oh, and by the way, morality issues aside, as a strictly practical matter I would highly recommend not visiting any of the sites "advertised" in the spam emails as it is likely to infect your computer with spyware or a virus or a Trojan horse of some kind (or make a determined attempt to do so), if you don't have all your virus protection and security updates in place and uptodate. Shahrukh Merchant Tango-L administrator [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
