On Wed, 2 Nov 1994, Mark Eckenwiler wrote:
> Fay Henexson sez:
> +
> + Anyone know the story behind yesterdays spam e-mail - the subject line
> + was something about "legalizing drugs" and to "to" portion of the message
> + seemed to be, at the very least, everyone on netcom (and since I'm on
> + class, presumably everyone there too!). To make matters worse, this
> + morning there was what appeared to be a reply which had been (yikes!)
> + apparently sent to everyone!
> +
>
> Send complaints to postmaster@<sitename>.
>
This spam is by someone who forged e-mail from David Guntner's account on
Netcom. The message shows up as some form as "legalize drugs" and is
sent to about 2,000-3,000 names from davidg@netcom.com. It has also been
sent to some mailing list addresses (luckily law-lib was not hit :)
Fay - I'm guessing that one of your messages may have been because
nocall-list was on the header.
David is not sending these messages; someone has forged his e-mail
address. The problem is that all replies go to David and also to all
2,000 of the original TO addresses when someone replies because people
think they are only sending their complaint to David. David finally set
up a bozo filter so that he can cut out some of the replies (just think
if someone did this to you!). The Netcom postmaster is very aware of this
situation and is trying to track down the source of these forgeries
so PLEASE do not send any messages to postmaster@netcom.com or
davidg@netcom.com.
Netcom has set up a faq to explain this and it is available to all Netcom
users. To see the faq, go to your netcom prompt and type: faq 191
I had thought it was over last week but yesterday I received two 105K
files in my mailbox - one from the alleged davidg and another from
someone who was complaining about it but forgot to not reply to all the
additional recipients. These things take on a life of their own so
please watch who you reply to when responding to a message.
Otherwise, I agree about sending a complaint to postmaster@<sitename> and
a copy to the person who sent you the unsolicited message. I also like to
include a copy of Daniel Dern's article on the correct use of advertising
via e-mail even if they aren't advertising. I include it at the bottom
of their message just so they have to waste their time looking at it just
like I had to waste my time reading their message (just my little way of
getting even :)
The URL for Dern's article is:
gopher://hey.internet.com:2200/00/News/cmd-ibiz
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Joan Loftus loftus@netcom.com
Pillsbury Madison & Sutro (415) 983-1770
World Wide Web: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/loftus/nocall/home.html
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