Yahoo must have had another major hacking this weekend, I've seen a lot of people with those accounts coming through the lists the past couple of days with spam. We need to keep a lookout and get those reported to the Archives Removal, even though it won't be until tomorrow at the earliest that RW does anything. Deloris Williams

Deloris, I'm not so sure I agree with your characterization of Yahoo spam "this weekend," but they sure do keep busy. You and I have corresponded before and YOU KNOW about my dislike for the spam, and a good friend of mine actually says I am "OCD" about it but I take that as a badge of honor. :-) That said, I see and report an awful lot of it on the numerous lists that I subscribe to, and the overwhelming majority of the domains I have noticed are either AOL or Yahoo. I'm not sure why, it just seems that way. Anyway, I report every single one of them I find on a list per very specific instructions given to me by someone at RW and they are getting removed not only from the archives but appropriate action is being taken against the subscriber to prevent the compromised account from sending any more garbage. We will NEVER get 100% of the spam to stop polluting the lists, but IMHO we as List Admins need to do all we can to keep the garbage at bay to whatever degree is possible. David E. Cann decann@infionline.net -----Original Message----- From: listowners-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:listowners-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Deloris Williams Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 1:28 PM To: listowners@rootsweb.com Subject: [LO] Yahoo Spammers Yahoo must have had another major hacking this weekend, I've seen a lot of people with those accounts coming through the lists the past couple of days with spam. We need to keep a lookout and get those reported to the Archives Removal, even though it won't be until tomorrow at the earliest that RW does anything. Deloris Williams

Hi Deloris It may be worth noting that Sky (currently Gmail) is passing all their email accounts over to *Yahoo* in April So expect plenty more hacked accounts Which is also causing me much work to swap over on all lists to another Gmail account Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) On 10/03/2013 17:27, Deloris Williams wrote: > Yahoo must have had another major hacking this weekend, I've seen a lot of > people with those accounts coming through the lists the past couple of days > with spam. We need to keep a lookout and get those reported to the > Archives Removal, even though it won't be until tomorrow at the earliest > that RW does anything. > > > Deloris Williams >

You telling us SKY of UK is passing their accounts to Yahoo instead of Gmail taking over the accounts permamently? David Samuelsen On 3/10/2013 1:25 PM, Nivard Ovington wrote: > Hi Deloris > > It may be worth noting that Sky (currently Gmail) is passing all their > email accounts over to*Yahoo* in April > > So expect plenty more hacked accounts > > Which is also causing me much work to swap over on all lists to another > Gmail account > > Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK)

Greetings: A notorious gangster in the 1930s was asked, "Why do you rob banks?" His answer was, "That is where the money is." If a spammer today were asked, "Why do you target Yahoo and AOL accounts?", he might answer, "Because that is where the most addresses are." Whether e-mail accounts are *hacked* (the evildoer actually gets some level of control over the account), or *spoofed* (the spammer sends out messages that only pretend to come from the account), the reason that certain domains seem to generate more than others is 1+1=2 simple. AOL and Yahoo have more subscribers. There are probably other factors, including the relative sophistication of the typical user, but sheer numbers is the big one. As list admins, it may help if we become familiar enough with message headers to tell the difference between something coming from a hacked account, or one that only pretends to. In the case of hacking, the subscriber's account has been compromised; there is often something that person can do to recover (and truth be told, there is often something silly they have done to be in the position). In the case of spoofing, though, the subscriber has no more control over the situation than if a kid went out trick-or-treating wearing a mask with their picture on it. My recent experience has been that spoofing to my lists is very rare. They don't even pop up in pending, that I notice. Perhaps RW has figured out how to stop spoofed messages. Hacked accounts keep happening, however. Whether it is just dumb luck on my part, or the relative inactivity of most of my lists, I don't seem to get much of that, either -- and if there is any pattern among the addresses, I haven't seen it. Almost all of the attempted spam to my lists is now routed through the message boards. That is true to such an overwhelming extent that I closed all the gateways (discussed a number of weeks ago). Darrell