>-----You probably don't intend to come across as arrogant, but you are. I'm trying not to sound arrogant, I just don't like bullies who SHOUT(sorry) to try and make their point, especially those who have no clue what they are talking about. These people are probably the ones who admin 100s of lists and 100s of boards and think they know everything. They are resistant to change, hate suggestions and bully posters. These same people aren't even reading the emails in full. Unbelievable, the emails I got directly and not to the list with threats of doom and gloom for Rootsweb because I'm using SpamCop. Probably what Rootsweb uses to parse the headers anyway. >-----It only gets sent to an admin address if the admin address is either in the To field or the Bcc field. Spam sent to the request, bounces or list addresses does NOT get "backscattered" or bounced by default to the admin address. I never said any of the emails were directed at my lists and being bounced. Some are directed at other lists and being returned to -admin@ which is forwarded to the list admin's true email. The Spam contains the forwarding emails for the admins, -admin@... which forwards it to my email. They are using To: and Bcc:, but also they are forging the return email address back to the listname-admin@.... which is a backscatter forgery email address and being forwarded to my email. -----Original Message----- From: Charani Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 8:24 AM To: listowners@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [LO] Lot of S*P*A*M coming thru - Captcha Tom Hutchison wrote: > Captcha verifies a human is submitting something on a form and it is not a > bot program. And it would soon drive people round the bend if they had to complete a captcha repeatedly. Yahoo mail does it on a fairly regular basis, and esp if I'm sending out a number of mails. It's also why I don't use Yahoo mail very often. > Right now spam bots just scrub the webpages looking for email addresses. > When they find them they record them, then they start spamming them. I think we are all aware of this already but thanks for the reminder! > This is > why most people mask their email online. Most people DON'T mask their addresses. Most don't know how to munge an address or don't want to. Even in newsgroups, where I DO use a munged address and where a fair few others also munge their addresses, there are other who will not make a private reply if they can't click on the address. With those genealogical newsgroups that are gatewayed to Rootsweb lists, posts with munged address don't get included in the archives. To effectively run a mailing list, it's not possible for people to use a munged address. The lists might possibly not include a private address in mails or the From field but that doesn't stop people putting their email address in the body of a mail - or even their private snail mail address and phone number! There's only so much Rootsweb can do to protect people from their own daftness or downright stupidity. > Example, John at domain.net, please > substitute the "at" with @ to send me an email.... It's also why a number of people won't bother with replies to address with such instructions. > I went back and looked at some of the spam today. It is so bad they are > actually backscattering the lists. In other words, they are sending out > the > spam, and using the mailman system bounce back to send it to > listowner-admin > addresses as a return address. It only gets sent to an admin address if the admin address is either in the To field or the Bcc field. Spam sent to the request, bounces or list addresses does NOT get "backscattered" or bounced by default to the admin address. > Perhaps they should just use the boards method and use a graphic generated > email address of the admin's real contact email. This would stop it too. An admin's "real contact email" isn't seen by anyone unless or until the admin him/herself reveals it either on list or to a list member who might have a compromised address. Although I have my doubts about Rootsweb's ability to keep addresses secure, I'm assured they are. At least Rootsweb is taking the matter seriously enough to attempt to keep list members safe. Just for the record, I'm not as green as I'm cabbage looking. You probably don't intend to come across as arrogant, but you are. -- Charani (UK) OPC for Walton, Greinton and Clutton, SOM Asst OPC for Ashcott and Shapwick, SOM http://wsom-opc.org.uk http://www.savethegurkhas.co.uk/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LISTOWNERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

The only thing RootsWeb COULD do but it would be a major undertaking would be to encrypt ALL addresses on the list index Web site. The old John Fuller site would have to be encrypted as well and I'm not sure who has charge of that now as it always was a volunteer activity. I believe the lack of encryption on these sites is the main reason admins and list addresses regularly get harvested for spam. The list archives is all encrypted and that protects list subscribers and posters. Joan In a message dated 11/18/2011 8:32:26 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, charani.b@gmail.com writes: Although I have my doubts about Rootsweb's ability to keep addresses secure, I'm assured they are. At least Rootsweb is taking the matter seriously enough to attempt to keep list members safe.

Darrell A. Martin wrote: > On 11/17/2011 2:02 PM, Mary D. Taffet wrote: >> Tom, >> >> You should * NEVER * send e-mail coming through Rootsweb (via the listname-admin@rootsweb.com forwarding address) to SpamCop, or any other spam reporting service. This only results in Rootsweb being marked as a spammer. Instead just delete them. >> >> Your suggestion is a good one, but I'm sure it wouldn't be high on anybody's priority list -- unless perhaps they themselves are getting equally inundated with spam every day. >> >> -- Mary > > Tom: > > Do not lose sight of one crucial fact; as list admin, you are a key part > of the *defense* against all sorts of inappropriate traffic. You are not > a victim! > > An offensive lineman in football might as well gripe about all those > mean people who try to go around him and hit his quarterback. It is one > of *his* primary functions to stop it! > > There are a number of ways to reduce the impact of junk coming through > the -admin address. If you can provide common examples we can probably > come up with multiple solutions. If you find you simply can no longer > handle the responsibility (and there are perfectly good reasons why you > might not be able to, it is not a criticism) then the answer is to find > someone who can take over -- in whole or in part. Darrell may be right, but -- I don't see the admin's job as including being an anti-_pam warrior for the universe. Seems to me, as an admin, my job is to keep the stuff of MY lists, whether I do by deleting it from the pending file or by reporting it to someone before I delete it. Particularly since, IME, reporting 4 of 'em gets me 16 more within a couple hours, and reporting those 16 gets me too-many-to-count more in the next couple hours. Whereas, simply deleting the first 4 gets me 0 more in the next 24-hours. Cheryl

On 11/18/2011 8:14 AM, JYoung6180@aol.com wrote: > The only thing RootsWeb COULD do but it would be a major undertaking would > be to encrypt ALL addresses on the list index Web site. The old John Fuller > site would have to be encrypted as well and I'm not sure who has charge of > that now as it always was a volunteer activity. I believe the lack of > encryption on these sites is the main reason admins and list addresses > regularly get harvested for spam. The list archives is all encrypted and that > protects list subscribers and posters. > > Joan Joan: Captcha is not actually as bad as scumjunkspam, but it is fairly competitive in the category "cure worse than disease", in my opinion. All the technology in the world does not change two things, among others: RootsWeb's addresses are predictable and stable, and can be recreated manually; and, RootsWeb addresses (including the -admin address) are found in many subscribers' address books. Once an address is "loose in the wild" it gets passed around by the scumbags. Of my dozen and a half lists and the associated boards, the ones that have been identified by the lowlife vandals keep getting hit with gateway posts and junk being sent to -admin and -request. If I had a choice of where RootsWeb's efforts should be centered, it would be to do a better job of tossing the most egregiously obvious SPAM from my pending requests list. (I handle the gateways and pending requests manually, and will as long as I can keep up.) It is the nature of the admin's responsibilities that messages sent to -admin need to be seen. Any filters have to be *very* unlikely to incorrectly discard messages. This is especially important when working with a genuine subscriber who is sending copies of messages they have received which either do come from the list, or seem to. Darrell

Tom- You have a way to talking to people as if we are all idiots but you know all the answers. I know exactly what you mean by backscatter but the ONLY time an admin would see that sort of thing happening would be IF/WHEN a RootsWeb list or admin address is forged (spoofed) as the sender of the spam and some of the spam bounces back to the "sender" or supposed sender because the addresses it was sent to were bad -- and that hasn't been happening nearly as much of late as it did in the past. It certainly doesn't constitute any major volume of our spam as list admins. Joan In a message dated 11/17/2011 11:07:47 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, tom@hutch4.us writes: RootsWeb's list techies Just ONE techie.... -it doesn't "backscatter" to the admin address. You don’t even know what backscatter is...do you? So I’ll tell you. It is the forgery of the sender email address. So a spammer’s bounce back goes somewhere else. Spammer emails Person A, but Person A is bad email address or bounced back because it is recognized as Spam. The email is returned to Person B, as designated in the return path of the email. A back up in case Person A doesn’t get the email, Person B might. Person B is the BACKSCATTER...eee.

RootsWeb's list techies Just ONE techie.... -it doesn't "backscatter" to the admin address. You don’t even know what backscatter is...do you? So I’ll tell you. It is the forgery of the sender email address. So a spammer’s bounce back goes somewhere else. Spammer emails Person A, but Person A is bad email address or bounced back because it is recognized as Spam. The email is returned to Person B, as designated in the return path of the email. A back up in case Person A doesn’t get the email, Person B might. Person B is the BACKSCATTER...eee. From: JYoung6180@aol.com Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 10:45 PM To: tom@hutch4.us ; listowners@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [LO] You are the part of the SOLUTION, not a victim (was - Lot of S*P*A*M... Tom- You are still missing the point that ADMIN mail is not *everyone's* issue--it is just an issue admins deal with in deleting spam or reporting to RootsWeb's abuse address. RootsWeb's list techies deal with the volume of spam and what they need to do to protect the servers. This is all addressed in the List Admin help pages. It isn't OUR responsibility to worry about wasting resources---that is what the staff techies get paid to worry about. http://helpdesk.rootsweb.ancestry.com/listadmins/spam.html Joan PS: Spam sent to list or request addresses will either be discarded or sent to pending requests for admin review (depending on the admin's settings for the list)--it doesn't "backscatter" to the admin address. If you are getting spam at your admin address it was either sent to that address also (much of the spam is sent to every address possible--list, request, admin) or BCCd to the admin address. In a message dated 11/17/2011 10:36:52 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, tom@hutch4.us writes: I never said I was the VICTIM. Everyone who uses the websites at Ancestry, Rootsweb and myfamily.com are the victims. These emails ARE NOT SENT to the list itself, but to the -admin address. My lists are not open to non-subscribers, and any email to the list itself would get queued for approval or denial and an email is sent to me as notification of this. Example email... There was addressed today the Whitmore list, backscattered to one of my lists as a return path -admin. Whitmore must reject non subscriber emails without the queuing of it for approval so the email was backscattered to my -admin address which is then forwarded to my real email. The reason I said everyone is the victim, processing time. If 10,000 spam emails are sent, 1 sec of mail server time receiving it, 10,000 seconds. Say half were returned as backscatter to -admin emails, the other half were queued and an email was sent to the admins of the lists notifying of the email. That's 5000 seconds, processed and an email sent, 5000 seconds bounced back to -admin which had to be processed again and sent to the real admin's email, another 10,000 seconds. 20000 seconds equals 5 1/2 hours of server time processing spam!!! Of which could be spent making census searches faster, boards searching faster, uploads of gedcoms faster. Of course 1 sec could be .5 or 1.5 or whatever, the point is it is WASTING RESOURCES AND LIST ADMINS are a contributing cause. Mainly because they think they know it all because they’ve been a list admin forever, admin 100s of lists(don’t get me started) or retired from an IT job and everything is still the same as when they left. One of the lists was one I requested in the 90s, so I’m not some newbie to this. My original email contained an idea to help the problem and reduce unnecessary resource use. So far, and not surprised, I’m sorry I even posted this. In typical fashion, no suggestions or constructive comments save one, just criticism. Tom PS, Listowner admin, you might want to turn on replies to the list so everyone can benefit from replies to posts.

Tom- You are still missing the point that ADMIN mail is not *everyone's* issue--it is just an issue admins deal with in deleting spam or reporting to RootsWeb's abuse address. RootsWeb's list techies deal with the volume of spam and what they need to do to protect the servers. This is all addressed in the List Admin help pages. It isn't OUR responsibility to worry about wasting resources---that is what the staff techies get paid to worry about. http://helpdesk.rootsweb.ancestry.com/listadmins/spam.html Joan PS: Spam sent to list or request addresses will either be discarded or sent to pending requests for admin review (depending on the admin's settings for the list)--it doesn't "backscatter" to the admin address. If you are getting spam at your admin address it was either sent to that address also (much of the spam is sent to every address possible--list, request, admin) or BCCd to the admin address. In a message dated 11/17/2011 10:36:52 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, tom@hutch4.us writes: I never said I was the VICTIM. Everyone who uses the websites at Ancestry, Rootsweb and myfamily.com are the victims. These emails ARE NOT SENT to the list itself, but to the -admin address. My lists are not open to non-subscribers, and any email to the list itself would get queued for approval or denial and an email is sent to me as notification of this. Example email... There was addressed today the Whitmore list, backscattered to one of my lists as a return path -admin. Whitmore must reject non subscriber emails without the queuing of it for approval so the email was backscattered to my -admin address which is then forwarded to my real email. The reason I said everyone is the victim, processing time. If 10,000 spam emails are sent, 1 sec of mail server time receiving it, 10,000 seconds. Say half were returned as backscatter to -admin emails, the other half were queued and an email was sent to the admins of the lists notifying of the email. That's 5000 seconds, processed and an email sent, 5000 seconds bounced back to -admin which had to be processed again and sent to the real admin's email, another 10,000 seconds. 20000 seconds equals 5 1/2 hours of server time processing spam!!! Of which could be spent making census searches faster, boards searching faster, uploads of gedcoms faster. Of course 1 sec could be .5 or 1.5 or whatever, the point is it is WASTING RESOURCES AND LIST ADMINS are a contributing cause. Mainly because they think they know it all because they’ve been a list admin forever, admin 100s of lists(don’t get me started) or retired from an IT job and everything is still the same as when they left. One of the lists was one I requested in the 90s, so I’m not some newbie to this. My original email contained an idea to help the problem and reduce unnecessary resource use. So far, and not surprised, I’m sorry I even posted this. In typical fashion, no suggestions or constructive comments save one, just criticism. Tom PS, Listowner admin, you might want to turn on replies to the list so everyone can benefit from replies to posts.

I never said I was the VICTIM. Everyone who uses the websites at Ancestry, Rootsweb and myfamily.com are the victims. These emails ARE NOT SENT to the list itself, but to the -admin address. My lists are not open to non-subscribers, and any email to the list itself would get queued for approval or denial and an email is sent to me as notification of this. Example email... There was addressed today the Whitmore list, backscattered to one of my lists as a return path -admin. Whitmore must reject non subscriber emails without the queuing of it for approval so the email was backscattered to my -admin address which is then forwarded to my real email. The reason I said everyone is the victim, processing time. If 10,000 spam emails are sent, 1 sec of mail server time receiving it, 10,000 seconds. Say half were returned as backscatter to -admin emails, the other half were queued and an email was sent to the admins of the lists notifying of the email. That's 5000 seconds, processed and an email sent, 5000 seconds bounced back to -admin which had to be processed again and sent to the real admin's email, another 10,000 seconds. 20000 seconds equals 5 1/2 hours of server time processing spam!!! Of which could be spent making census searches faster, boards searching faster, uploads of gedcoms faster. Of course 1 sec could be .5 or 1.5 or whatever, the point is it is WASTING RESOURCES AND LIST ADMINS are a contributing cause. Mainly because they think they know it all because they’ve been a list admin forever, admin 100s of lists(don’t get me started) or retired from an IT job and everything is still the same as when they left. One of the lists was one I requested in the 90s, so I’m not some newbie to this. My original email contained an idea to help the problem and reduce unnecessary resource use. So far, and not surprised, I’m sorry I even posted this. In typical fashion, no suggestions or constructive comments save one, just criticism. Tom PS, Listowner admin, you might want to turn on replies to the list so everyone can benefit from replies to posts.

On 11/17/2011 2:02 PM, Mary D. Taffet wrote: > Tom, > > You should * NEVER * send e-mail coming through Rootsweb (via the listname-admin@rootsweb.com forwarding address) to SpamCop, or any other spam reporting service. This only results in Rootsweb being marked as a spammer. Instead just delete them. > > Your suggestion is a good one, but I'm sure it wouldn't be high on anybody's priority list -- unless perhaps they themselves are getting equally inundated with spam every day. > > -- Mary Tom: Do not lose sight of one crucial fact; as list admin, you are a key part of the *defense* against all sorts of inappropriate traffic. You are not a victim! An offensive lineman in football might as well gripe about all those mean people who try to go around him and hit his quarterback. It is one of *his* primary functions to stop it! There are a number of ways to reduce the impact of junk coming through the -admin address. If you can provide common examples we can probably come up with multiple solutions. If you find you simply can no longer handle the responsibility (and there are perfectly good reasons why you might not be able to, it is not a criticism) then the answer is to find someone who can take over -- in whole or in part. Darrell

Captcha verifies a human is submitting something on a form and it is not a bot program. Captcha is free to anyone but I think you can make a donation if you want. Or they could run a subroutine to choose two random numbers and request the sum of them. Like what is 7+4, enter it. A bot wouldn't be able to get around that. It takes a human to complete the pass check to send the email. Right now spam bots just scrub the webpages looking for email addresses. When they find them they record them, then they start spamming them. This is why most people mask their email online. Example, John at domain.net, please substitute the "at" with @ to send me an email.... I went back and looked at some of the spam today. It is so bad they are actually backscattering the lists. In other words, they are sending out the spam, and using the mailman system bounce back to send it to listowner-admin addresses as a return address. Perhaps they should just use the boards method and use a graphic generated email address of the admin's real contact email. This would stop it too. Tom -----Original Message----- From: listowners-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:listowners-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of W David Samuelsen Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 3:49 PM To: listowners@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [LO] Lot of S*P*A*M coming thru the number of spam has dwindled. I saw only one so far in last 24 hours. As for captcha - for what purpose here? Wouldn't that require Ancestry to spend more $. Ancestry had some problems with filtering last few days but fixed now, but the ones that got through were from hacked accounts of the subscribers. I haven't seen one that goes to xxxx-admin for long time. The only ones that did go were from subscribers who didn't do something right or over the message size limit or have unauthorized attachments. David Samuelsen On 11/17/2011 12:42 PM, Tom Hutchison wrote: > Has anyone asked if a contact form with Captcha could be instituted > for mail list listowner contact? > > > > I only admin 3 lists, 6 to 10 emails every single day to the > listowner's contact forwarding email. Some of it is offensive. It is > like Ancestry shut off the Spam filters entirely! I am so sick of > seeing these emails. Some of these emails even have malicious site > links. There is a better way, Contact form with a Captcha challenge or > just plain shut off the admin's email, you know the > surname-admin@rootsweb.com or whatever the list name is -admin. I see no point of having it unless someone is having difficulty subscribing. > Contact form! Which could also track their IP address. Spam from the > contact form, then block the IP address. > > > > I used to only get maybe 1 or 2 a month - Not 6 to 10 a day as it has > been for the past month and a half. Yes I report it thru spamcop, yes > copies are sent to Ancestry or myfamily.com actually. Spamcop lists > them as a party interested in spam coming thru their servers, but > there has been no decreased activity. > > > > Thanks > > Tom > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > LISTOWNERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LISTOWNERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Tom- It isn't a question of being out of date and it isn't a question of what we think we know -- it is a matter of what RootsWeb instructed us to DO with spam that comes THROUGH RootsWeb or gives the appearance of being FROM RootsWeb (I know how to find the actual source also). Let RootsWeb take care of it by sending it to abuse. That is the end of OUR worries about spam and what the source is. Joan In a message dated 11/17/2011 7:27:20 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, tom@hutch4.us writes: Old school thinking. IT'S 2011 I run over 1/2 doz websites. I know about mail headers and dealing with spammers. You are thinking 1990s. Everyone realized a few years back the spammers had gotten smarter. SpamCop had to adjust and so did all the hosts to deal with the problem. All you're doing when you use SpamCop and you set it up properly with the new method is parsing out who the original sender is, what IP it came from, and what host is responsible for that IP. It has NO IMPACT on rootsweb at all. They know rootsweb is a pass through email sender. It's in the header of the email. I use it on all my mail hosts. Those domains have not been blacklisted as a spammer. It's been well over a year since I've elected to use the new method. Tom

Old school thinking. IT'S 2011 I run over 1/2 doz websites. I know about mail headers and dealing with spammers. You are thinking 1990s. Everyone realized a few years back the spammers had gotten smarter. SpamCop had to adjust and so did all the hosts to deal with the problem. All you're doing when you use SpamCop and you set it up properly with the new method is parsing out who the original sender is, what IP it came from, and what host is responsible for that IP. It has NO IMPACT on rootsweb at all. They know rootsweb is a pass through email sender. It's in the header of the email. I use it on all my mail hosts. Those domains have not been blacklisted as a spammer. It's been well over a year since I've elected to use the new method. Tom

Tom- I'm with Mary...you should NEVER do that. Report any spam coming through or "from" RootsWeb ONLY to abuse@rootsweb.com . DO NOT report it anywhere else--I don't care HOW smart the spam service IS...we are still NOT to do that. Joan In a message dated 11/17/2011 3:23:46 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, tom@hutch4.us writes: Not true! Depends on if you are using the new SpamCop reporting system. Not everyone is but I am. The new system is smarter and not fooled easily. It will eventually be the standard way to report. It recognizes rootsweb is the pass thru and not the originator of the spam. On my SpamCop account, rootsweb and their servers are a whitelisted domain tied to a IP. Hence the report says "party interested" in spam myfamily.com. It is like I'm doing the footwork in reporting it, but I feel like they aren't using the info to block. Tom

> You should * NEVER * send e-mail coming through Rootsweb (via the listname-admin@rootsweb.com forwarding address) to SpamCop, or any other spam reporting service. This only results in Rootsweb being marked as a spammer. Instead just delete them. Not true! Depends on if you are using the new SpamCop reporting system. Not everyone is but I am. The new system is smarter and not fooled easily. It will eventually be the standard way to report. It recognizes rootsweb is the pass thru and not the originator of the spam. On my SpamCop account, rootsweb and their servers are a whitelisted domain tied to a IP. Hence the report says "party interested" in spam myfamily.com. It is like I'm doing the footwork in reporting it, but I feel like they aren't using the info to block. Tom On Nov 17, 2011, at 3:02 PM, "Mary D. Taffet" <mdtaffet@twcny.rr.com> wrote: > Tom, > > You should * NEVER * send e-mail coming through Rootsweb (via the listname-admin@rootsweb.com forwarding address) to SpamCop, or any other spam reporting service. This only results in Rootsweb being marked as a spammer. Instead just delete them. > > Your suggestion is a good one, but I'm sure it wouldn't be high on anybody's priority list -- unless perhaps they themselves are getting equally inundated with spam every day. > > -- Mary > > > > ---- Tom Hutchison <tom@hutch4.us> wrote: >> Has anyone asked if a contact form with Captcha could be instituted for mail >> list listowner contact? >> >> >> >> I only admin 3 lists, 6 to 10 emails every single day to the listowner's >> contact forwarding email. Some of it is offensive. It is like Ancestry shut >> off the Spam filters entirely! I am so sick of seeing these emails. Some of >> these emails even have malicious site links. There is a better way, Contact >> form with a Captcha challenge or just plain shut off the admin's email, you >> know the surname-admin@rootsweb.com or whatever the list name is -admin. I >> see no point of having it unless someone is having difficulty subscribing. >> Contact form! Which could also track their IP address. Spam from the contact >> form, then block the IP address. >> >> >> >> I used to only get maybe 1 or 2 a month - Not 6 to 10 a day as it has been >> for the past month and a half. Yes I report it thru spamcop, yes copies are >> sent to Ancestry or myfamily.com actually. Spamcop lists them as a party >> interested in spam coming thru their servers, but there has been no >> decreased activity. >> >> >> >> Thanks >> >> Tom >

Tom, You should * NEVER * send e-mail coming through Rootsweb (via the listname-admin@rootsweb.com forwarding address) to SpamCop, or any other spam reporting service. This only results in Rootsweb being marked as a spammer. Instead just delete them. Your suggestion is a good one, but I'm sure it wouldn't be high on anybody's priority list -- unless perhaps they themselves are getting equally inundated with spam every day. -- Mary ---- Tom Hutchison <tom@hutch4.us> wrote: > Has anyone asked if a contact form with Captcha could be instituted for mail > list listowner contact? > > > > I only admin 3 lists, 6 to 10 emails every single day to the listowner's > contact forwarding email. Some of it is offensive. It is like Ancestry shut > off the Spam filters entirely! I am so sick of seeing these emails. Some of > these emails even have malicious site links. There is a better way, Contact > form with a Captcha challenge or just plain shut off the admin's email, you > know the surname-admin@rootsweb.com or whatever the list name is -admin. I > see no point of having it unless someone is having difficulty subscribing. > Contact form! Which could also track their IP address. Spam from the contact > form, then block the IP address. > > > > I used to only get maybe 1 or 2 a month - Not 6 to 10 a day as it has been > for the past month and a half. Yes I report it thru spamcop, yes copies are > sent to Ancestry or myfamily.com actually. Spamcop lists them as a party > interested in spam coming thru their servers, but there has been no > decreased activity. > > > > Thanks > > Tom

Has anyone asked if a contact form with Captcha could be instituted for mail list listowner contact? I only admin 3 lists, 6 to 10 emails every single day to the listowner's contact forwarding email. Some of it is offensive. It is like Ancestry shut off the Spam filters entirely! I am so sick of seeing these emails. Some of these emails even have malicious site links. There is a better way, Contact form with a Captcha challenge or just plain shut off the admin's email, you know the surname-admin@rootsweb.com or whatever the list name is -admin. I see no point of having it unless someone is having difficulty subscribing. Contact form! Which could also track their IP address. Spam from the contact form, then block the IP address. I used to only get maybe 1 or 2 a month - Not 6 to 10 a day as it has been for the past month and a half. Yes I report it thru spamcop, yes copies are sent to Ancestry or myfamily.com actually. Spamcop lists them as a party interested in spam coming thru their servers, but there has been no decreased activity. Thanks Tom

the number of spam has dwindled. I saw only one so far in last 24 hours. As for captcha - for what purpose here? Wouldn't that require Ancestry to spend more $. Ancestry had some problems with filtering last few days but fixed now, but the ones that got through were from hacked accounts of the subscribers. I haven't seen one that goes to xxxx-admin for long time. The only ones that did go were from subscribers who didn't do something right or over the message size limit or have unauthorized attachments. David Samuelsen On 11/17/2011 12:42 PM, Tom Hutchison wrote: > Has anyone asked if a contact form with Captcha could be instituted for mail > list listowner contact? > > > > I only admin 3 lists, 6 to 10 emails every single day to the listowner's > contact forwarding email. Some of it is offensive. It is like Ancestry shut > off the Spam filters entirely! I am so sick of seeing these emails. Some of > these emails even have malicious site links. There is a better way, Contact > form with a Captcha challenge or just plain shut off the admin's email, you > know the surname-admin@rootsweb.com or whatever the list name is -admin. I > see no point of having it unless someone is having difficulty subscribing. > Contact form! Which could also track their IP address. Spam from the contact > form, then block the IP address. > > > > I used to only get maybe 1 or 2 a month - Not 6 to 10 a day as it has been > for the past month and a half. Yes I report it thru spamcop, yes copies are > sent to Ancestry or myfamily.com actually. Spamcop lists them as a party > interested in spam coming thru their servers, but there has been no > decreased activity. > > > > Thanks > > Tom > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LISTOWNERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

David, I have seen several others, Comcast and Yahoo among them. I report stuff on lists I subscribe to on a regular daily basis, and while AOL certainly has it's share of the stuff, so do a number of other domains as well. David E. Cann decann@infionline.net or on Skype at "david.e.cann" -----Original Message----- From: listowners-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:listowners-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of W David Samuelsen Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 2:03 PM To: JYoung6180@aol.com Cc: LISTOWNERS@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [LO] Spa*mm*ed This current round of spams are coming from hacked AOL accounts. I have yet to see any others. Now only if we could educate OTHERS not to reply to those msgs with complaints and hit delete button instead. Now we have to deal with added posts in archives to remove them. W. David Samuelsen <snip>

They mostly come from free web-based accounts whether they be AOL, Hotmail (which I just had a bunch of), or Yahoo accounts. These seem to be the most vulnerable. Joan In a message dated 11/16/2011 2:02:52 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, dsam52@sampubco.com writes: This current round of spams are coming from hacked AOL accounts. I have yet to see any others. Now only if we could educate OTHERS not to reply to those msgs with complaints and hit delete button instead. Now we have to deal with added posts in archives to remove them. W. David Samuelsen

In a message dated 11/16/2011 8:56:48 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, dsam52@sampubco.com writes: AOLers will NOT know at all until they get unsubscribe notice, This is not quite true. If an AOL account is hijacked & sending out spam, AOL will detect it sending out the abnormally high number of emails within a short period of time. They will then block the AOL subscriber from signing on by rejecting their password. If they are already signed on, they will be booted offline. There will be a telephone # displayed for the subscriber to call to get the block removed. An AOL rep will discuss with them the procedures to clean their machine and won't allow them to sign on until the machine is clean. It's happened to me twice. Sharon Dulcich