[Mishmash] SPAM Issues

[Hugh Gigante]

Yahoo contact lists have been compromised often . . . and equally often the
"offence" starts with a yahoo contact list.

Hugh

-----Original Message-----
From: mishmash-bounces at mishmash.net [mailto:mishmash-bounces at mishmash.net]
On Behalf Of Fred Atkinson
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2012 1:23 PM
To: mishmash at mishmash.net
Subject: [Mishmash] SPAM Issues

Folks,

	I received a complaint from the company that I use to provide
Internet services [hereafter referred to as my 'provider'].

	It didn't involve anyone on the Mishmash mailing list.  Actually, it
was on a mailing list that is on a Web site that I host for our radio club
here in Las Cruces (www.n5bl.org).

	It appears that someone that was subscribing to the MVRC Reflector
(what our club calls their list like Mishmash is a list) made a complaint
with his email provider (who just happened to be Yahoo) that a SPAM message
had been sent over the MVRC Reflector.

	Yahoo contacted my provider.  They were not happy.  My provider
contacted me.  They were not happy, either.

	We (my provider and I) read the 'offending' message together while
we was on the phone with them.

	The 'offending' message was sent by one of our club members.
Apparently he took some pictures of the Endeavor when it flew over. us  He
attached them to an email and sent it over the MVRC Reflector to share it
with other members (MVRC = Mesilla Valley Radio Club, our local ham radio
club).

	There was absolutely nothing wrong with that and my provider
concurred.

	Nevertheless, Yahoo was threatening to block our email server from
being able to send messages to Yahoo email accounts.

	So we had to deal with the complainant.  The consequences could have
been that Yahoo would block all email from the mailserver I use to provide
services for all of those I host.  Our other MVRC club members would not be
able to receive messages from the reflector and a lot of other lists (some
hosted by me, some hosted by other customers of my provider) would have the
same problem.

	I tried to contact the complainant.  His telephone number is
unlisted.  I sent him an email requesting that he contact me.  I gave him my
home telephone number.  But he has neglected to call me back.

	It turns out that he isn't even a member of our club.  He was
subscribed to the list as a non-member.  So since he is not a club member
and since he won't call or email me on this issue, we are just going to
delete him from the MVRC Reflector.  My provider says that they will
consider this matter closed once we do that.  I would have preferred to work
things out with the complainant so that we didn't have to delete another ham
radio operator from a mailing list about ham radio.  Our club president (who
currently runs the Reflector) has taken off on a family emergency.  So we're
going to have to wait until he returns to get it done.  But he did set the
complainent's emal to 'no mail' status.  So that person won't be getting any
messages that he can use to complain about.  Hopefully, Rob will be back
soon and delete him from the Reflector.

	I believe that some of you were aware when Dick could not receive
messages from Mishmash.  It appears that another of my provider's customers
had a customer that was sending SPAM over the same email server.  Someone
who was a Comcast customer complained.  Comcast blocked all mail from our
mail server.  A number of our MVRC Club members who were Comcast subscribers
could not receive email from the Reflector and Dick was not able to receive
messages from Mishmash because he is a Comcast customer.  This happened in
spite of the fact that no one I was hosting was an offender.

	It took my provider an Act of Congress to get Comcast to lift the
block.  But they finally got it done.

	Now that you see what has been happening, I'll make my request.

	If you have a complaint about anything that is coming over Mishmash,
please email me directly and take it up with me.

	Please don't take it up with your ISP or your email provider.  We
are all adult enough to work out any issues ourselves.

	You could impact a lot of other people.  Some of them are people I
am hosting.  Others are people that are being hosted by someone else.

	The common bond we [you, me, other resellers, their clients, my
provider, etc.] all have is our mail server.  Getting it blocked by some ISP
or email provider impacts a lot of other people.

	Thanks for your consideration.




									Fred


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