To: WSFAlist at WSFA.org
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 18:19:42 -0400
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Freebies List Spammed
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

On Mon, 25 Jul 2005 01:04:03 -0400 Barry Newton <bnewton at ashcomp.com>
writes:
> The WSFA Freebies list has been spammed with a political rant--or,
> rather,
> a link to one.  One hopes this was not the beginning of many.  If
> this
> becomes a problem--and it won't take much--then WSFA Freebies and
> the
> Capclave Yahoo group will have to make other arrangements.  I really
> hope
> it doesn't come to that.
>
> Barry
>

I run a yahoo list myself, and occasionally that list gets what I call a
'hit and run' spam.  Someone subscribes, posts their advertising message
or political/religious opinion piece, and then unsubscribes, or simply
expects to be unsubbed by the moderator/owner, once the activity is
noticed.  On my list it happens once every couple of months or so.

There is a way to keep such messages off the list.  What I do is set the
list options such that new members are automatically on 'moderated'
status, and for me to be automatically notified by email when a new
member subscribes, and when a moderated message is posted.  To approve
the message, I just 'reply' to the notification.  To disapprove the
message, I do nothing, and that message will not go to the list.
Periodically I promote new members to 'unmoderated' status, once there is
some indication that those new members are legitimate.

The drawback of that method is that if the list were to get hit with an
excessive amount of such spam, it could create excessive work for the
moderator.  But that hasn't happened with my list - yet.  I'm surprised
that such spamming is not far more prevalent than it seems to be, since
Yahoo allows subscription by email, and that is a process which could be
automated by a spammer, if the spammer has software that can
automatically harvest group names.  Perhaps yahoo already has some system
in place to combat such spam.  One obvious way would to block subscribing
to more than, say, five lists per day.  Yahoo could easily impose a
Turing test on list subscription, but they have done that yet, as far as
I know.

Ironically, since my yahoo list is a political discussion list, it's not
always easy to tell whether a new member who signs up and immediately
posts a political rant is legitimate or not.  I consider it illegitimate
on that list to post a one time message without the intent of
participating in discussion on the list, or to post material which is
wildly off-topic.  So if a political message from a new member seems to
be on topic, I will let the message go through, even though the message
may in fact be hit and run spam.

Ron Kean

.