Re: [ATM] SPAM AGAIN!

[Chris Rowland <chris_group_mail@dsl.pipex.com>]

Mark Holm wrote:
> Chris Rowland wrote:
> 
>> It seems to be fundamental to the way the list - and the archives - 
>> work. Our email address are posted in the archives, in clear, for anyone 
>> to harvest.
>> It doesn't seem to be anything that individual people can do anything 
>> about, or an issue of posting in HTML.  It is when the messages are 
>> converted to HTML  - including the headers - for the archives that the 
>> problem arises.
> 
> Looking at the recent archives, from January 2004 onward,as found at
> http://www.atmlist.net/pipermail/atm/ , I do not see headers posted.
> The message sender's email address is present, though it is (weakly)
> obfuscated, e.g. mdholm at telerama.com  Very probably, some spam
> address harvester's can defeat this simple form of obfuscation.  The
> obfuscated email addresses do not seem to link to plain or html forms of
> the addresses.

If you look at http://astro.umsystem.edu/atm/ARCHIVES/MAY07/msg00276.html
you will see:
Re: [ATM] [Atmadmin] no luck with FTP

     * To: ATM Superheros <atm@atmlist.net>
     * Subject: Re: [ATM] [Atmadmin] no luck with FTP
     * From: Dominic-Luc Webb <dlwebb@canit.se>
     * Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 09:15:58 +0200 (MET DST)
     * Delivered-to: atm_arc@astro.umsystem.edu
     * In-reply-to: <4654EC84.7070109@optonline.net>
     * List-archive: <http://www.atmlist.net/pipermail/atm>
     * List-help: <mailto:atm-request@atmlist.net?subject=help>
     * List-id: The Amateur Telescope Makers List <atm.atmlist.net>
     * List-post: <mailto:atm@atmlist.net>
     * List-subscribe: 
<http://www.atmlist.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/atm>, 
<mailto:atm-request@atmlist.net?subject=subscribe>
     * List-unsubscribe: 
<http://www.atmlist.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/atm>, 
<mailto:atm-request@atmlist.net?subject=unsubscribe>
     * Sender: atm-bounces@atmlist.net

This is the first item in the ATM archives for MAY 2007.

One door may have been closed (I can't suggest it is locked) but another 
one has been left open with the "Welcome to spammers" sign on it.

Chris

> 
> The older archive, at http://astro.umsystem.edu/atm/search.html , does
> include unobscured email addresses.
> 
> Something to keep in mind is that email addresses published on the web
> are hardly the only sources of email addresses for spam any more.  Virus
> writers, getting paid by spammers, now include spamming services in the
> viruses they plant on unsuspecting computers.  One of the services they
> provide to spammers is harvesting the email addresses they find on
> infected computers.  They program the viruses to go through email
> address books and emails stored on the infected computer, then send the
> harvested addresses back to the "controller" who sells them to spammers.
>  If this were accomplished on my computer, for example, the harvester
> would easily find the addresses of nearly all active atmlist members.
> 
> My wife has two email accounts, one at home, and one at the public
> school where she teaches.  She rarely uses the home account, never has
> belonged to any mailing lists, never uses the school account for
> anything other than school business, yet she gets spam on both accounts.
>    A Google search of her school address returns zero hits, but the
> account still gets spam.
> 
> 

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