But Nedra, that doesn't explain how this sort of thing gets through what I thought was a screening process by rootsweb or some administrative function. -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:32:53 -0800 To: wvpendle@rootsweb.com From: Nedra Dickman Brill <ndbrill@comcast.net> Subject: [WVPENDLE] Email spoofs Thank you Karen for letting us know. The messages went through because the sender address is a subscriber of the list. Email addresses are "harvested" and sold in mailing lists just like telephone lists. And, it is very easy to configure your email program for the "from" line to say whatever you would like it to say. I have a different "from" line with my school account to use even though the messages are actually sent from my same program through comcast. I knew that others have used my email address when I received bounce notifications of messages that I never sent. Just consider this the same as creating return address labels for someone else and using them to send postal junk mail. Nedra List admin

Rootsweb looks at the sender's email address on the from line and when it matches a subscriber, the message is sent. I do not think that Rootsweb tries to screen for message content. That would be impossible. How many times have we had books appear here that were for sale and of interest to our subscribers? Dollars appear with invites to family reunions. My school didn't even try because words found on porn web sites also appear in the medical dictionaries of our med tech students. We should feel fortunate that this happens so seldom. And, anyone who subscribes to a listserv needs to know how to use the delete key! <G> Nedra At 04:39 PM 3/1/2010 -0600, Bill Rexroad wrote: >But Nedra, that doesn't explain how this sort of thing gets through >what I thought was a screening process by rootsweb or some >administrative function. > >-------------------------------------------------------- > >Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:32:53 -0800 >To: wvpendle@rootsweb.com >From: Nedra Dickman Brill <ndbrill@comcast.net> >Subject: [WVPENDLE] Email spoofs > >Thank you Karen for letting us know. The messages went through >because the sender address is a subscriber of the list. > >Email addresses are "harvested" and sold in mailing lists just like >telephone lists. And, it is very easy to configure your email program >for the "from" line to say whatever you would like it to say. I have >a different "from" line with my school account to use even though the >messages are actually sent from my same program through comcast. > >I knew that others have used my email address when I received bounce >notifications of messages that I never sent. Just consider this the >same as creating return address labels for someone else and using >them to send postal junk mail. > >Nedra >List admin > >------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >WVPENDLE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi all, I administer a list -- one that's dormant for now -- but even so, I get notices from Rootsweb every few days, telling me that there are messages that need to be attended to. I log in at Rootsweb to where they hold the messages, and I review them, and they are all inevitably spam. I check off some boxes, and they are deleted, keeping the spam from being sent to the list. This seems to be very effective, as none of them have gotten through. Whoever is administering this list, should also get these notifications. Their subject is "1 [or 3, etc.] XXXX moderator request(s) waiting." The sender is mailman-bounces@rootsweb.com. If I don't attend to them, they now seem to automatically expire, which I think must be a new development. Spammers are a crafty lot, so it may be that they have worked out a way around this. But so far, it has worked very well. Hopefully this one that got through to this list was just a little glitch. Bonnie Nedra Dickman Brill wrote: > Rootsweb looks at the sender's email address on the from line and > when it matches a subscriber, the message is sent. > > I do not think that Rootsweb tries to screen for message content. > That would be impossible. How many times have we had books appear > here that were for sale and of interest to our subscribers? Dollars > appear with invites to family reunions. My school didn't even try > because words found on porn web sites also appear in the medical > dictionaries of our med tech students. > > We should feel fortunate that this happens so seldom. And, anyone who > subscribes to a listserv needs to know how to use the delete key! <G> > > Nedra > > At 04:39 PM 3/1/2010 -0600, Bill Rexroad wrote: > >> But Nedra, that doesn't explain how this sort of thing gets through >> what I thought was a screening process by rootsweb or some >> administrative function. >> >> -------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:32:53 -0800 >> To: wvpendle@rootsweb.com >> From: Nedra Dickman Brill <ndbrill@comcast.net> >> Subject: [WVPENDLE] Email spoofs >> >> Thank you Karen for letting us know. The messages went through >> because the sender address is a subscriber of the list. >> >> Email addresses are "harvested" and sold in mailing lists just like >> telephone lists. And, it is very easy to configure your email program >> for the "from" line to say whatever you would like it to say. I have >> a different "from" line with my school account to use even though the >> messages are actually sent from my same program through comcast. >> >> I knew that others have used my email address when I received bounce >> notifications of messages that I never sent. Just consider this the >> same as creating return address labels for someone else and using >> them to send postal junk mail. >> >> Nedra >> List admin >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> WVPENDLE-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 WVPENDLE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >