Jon, Deborah, & List -
I apologize for the delayed follow-up to Deborah's request.
I wish I had some IQ-boosting amazing strategy for
determining the source of
the spam that had been coming to the list. Sadly, it was
the combination of
too much experience with the like, and good old fashioned
guesswork.
Within Yahoo's list system, you can sort members in a myriad
of ways. I
simply looked back to when the complaints of spam started
rolling in, sorted
the new members list by join date, and started matching up
timeframes. I
narrowed it down to members who had joined within a two week
timeframe
starting just prior to the reports of SPAM, and started the
process of
elimination. Obviously valid member names were easy to spot
- people who
use their real names and true non-profit type domains could
easily be
crossed off. After that, it was down to those who had
joined solely with
free yahoo accounts, and who had suspicious names. Truly, I
think there
were only 3 left that matched this criteria, and the
offender stuck out like
a sore thumb with a name like "wininstantmillions"
or something of the sort.
Knowing my own experience in the Non-Profit Tech world,
"instant millions"
and "non-profit tech" did not match up at all...
and the offender was
uprooted with a quick e-mail to Deborah and her own quick
actions.
So, no extremely complicated technical explanation.
Spammers will continue
to get smarter, and we will continue to find new ways to
figure them out and
eliminate them - technically and not-so-technically.
I'm glad I was able to assist. Thanks for all your hard
work Deborah!
Brian
----- Original Message -----
From: "Deborah Elizabeth Finn"
<deborah_elizabeth_finn post.harvard.edu>
To: "Brian K. Patterson" <brianunpublished.org>
Cc: "Jonathan LaRosa" <JlaRosatdcorp.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 8:47 AM
Subject: RE: Fighting spam on the Information Systems Forum
On 12/7/05, Jonathan LaRosa <JlaRosatdcorp.org> wrote:
>
> > Many, many thanks are due to Brian Patterson,
> > who cleverly deduced the
> > email address of the offender.
>
> How did he deduce the email address? Inquiring minds
want to know . . .
>
> jon
Dear Brian,
I've had several queries about this! Would you care to post
something
to the list about how you figured this out?
Many, many thanks from Deborah
Deborah Elizabeth Finn
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
deborah_elizabeth_finnpost.harvard.edu
http://bl
og.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog
http://
public.xdi.org/=deborah.elizabeth.finn
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
--------------------~-->
Get Bzzzy! (real tools to help you find a job). Welcome to
the Sweet Life.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/KIlPFB/vlQLAA/TtwFAA/26EolB/TM
------------------------------------------------------------
--------~->
=========================================
The Information Systems Forum is an opt-in, low-traffic,
flame-free distribution list for discussions of information
technology for nonprofit organizations.
To post a message, prepare a regular email and send it to
Information_Systems_Forum@yahoogroups.com
To join the Information Systems Forum, send a blank email to
Information_Systems_Forum-SUBSCRIBE@yahoogroups.com
To leave the Information System Forum, send a blank email to
Information_Systems_Forum-UNSUBSCRIBE@yahoogroups.com .
Please note that there may be a lag (of hours or days)
between the moment that you send the command and the moment
that you stop receiving messages from this group. Your list
administrator apologizes for this flaw in the YahooGroups
configuration, but has been unable to shorten the lag from
her end of things.
To send a message to the list administrator (Deborah), email
it to deborah_elizabeth_finnpost.harvard.edu .
To view the message archive, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Information_Systems_Forum
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Information_Systems_Forum/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Information_Systems_Forum-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.c
om/info/terms/
|