To all subscribers of the Lists I manage:
First and foremost -- DO NOT reply to SPAM messages to the Lists!
It is being taken care of.
Secondly, and equally as important -- DO NOT post messages to
the Lists about this subject !!!!! You just do not know what is going
on behind the scenes -- I'm up to my ears in unread email right
now. If you MUST comment on the SPAM problem, send me a
private email. DO NOT POST ANY MESSAGE TO THE LISTS
IN RELATION TO THIS SUBJECT !!!!!! (Thanks.)
Now, some of you may know, and some may not, that we were hit
last night by the $%#&$&@* from Atlanta, GA, that crashed MAISER
at Indiana University. He has evidently "found" our Lists on RootsWeb
and sent out the same SPAM advertisements that he did at MAISER.
Some Lists got hit and some didn't. If you didn't get the garbage,
consider yourself lucky. Basically, what he did is send a long ad
for his "toner" products to all the Lists at RootsWeb. There are
probably 2,000 Lists there now, and if each averages 200 users,
that's 400,000 individual emails that RootsWeb would have had
to store and process, then send out. That's what crashed MAISER.
It just couldn't handle it and froze up, after one hard drive had been
physically destroyed. Actually, I received 6 duplicate messages
on the HOMESPUN List, and 3-5 on some of the others. It is not
at all inconceivable that were the spammer totally successful
that RootsWeb would have to handle a million messages all
at the same time. That would not be pretty!!
BE WARNED !!!!! I am asking RootsWeb to re-configure my
Lists so that only subscribers may post email to them. This
may cause problems for some users who have "dynamic"
email addresses. Some servers can't seem to settle down
and decide on a domain name, so users addresses keep
changing. If any of you have problems posting to the Lists
after the changeover, I will receive the posts instead of them
going to the Lists. I will get in touch with anyone who is
having problems.
I will try to keep everyone informed on what is going on. Just
be patient and remember, DO NOT send ANY email to the
Lists concerning SPAM, "Toner Man", or this problem in
general.
Lisa Henderson
Listowner