[californiadisasters] ADMIN READ: The Spam Problem in Groups

Some recent incidents have caused your owner and administrators to revisit
the issue of spam and its threat to our groups. We offer you this
clarification of our policy for the californiadisasters and
californiadisasters_discussion groups:

1. The owner and mods are responsible for giving the members a good
experience in these groups.

2. Spam is an annoyance anywhere. At least on a Yahoo! Group we can somewhat
control it. We start on these groups by moderating all members until they
prove to be real people. We stop a lot of spam in moderation.

3. Any account that sends spam to these groups is immediately banned.

This third point is the part we've decided we need to explain to you, since
you might some day be affected by this policy.

Spam comes from essentially four sources:

1. Fictitious email accounts ("regular spam")

2. Spoofed email addresses (message sent from one account, but labeled as
from another [innocent] account)

3. "Stolen" email accounts (an account has been cracked into and used by a
miscreant)

4. Compromised computers ("zombie": the computer has been "infected" with
some form of "malware", which gives a miscreant control of an innocent
person's computer).

We can't tell (unless we recognize the email address as being a regular
member) which of these sources the spam is coming from. Therefore, we have
no choice but to ban any account we get spam from. Locking the account out
altogether protects the group (not all the potential problem is spam; we
don't want our group or our members to be victimized by whatever malevolence
these lowlifes may be trying).

We need, though, to explain to you that this in no way is a reflection on
any actual member who might be affected; we are banning an offending account
without judging whether the member who owns that account is offending.

Now, we need to clarify what your responsibility is: Of the above sources of
spam, you can have some control over types 3 and 4. You must (not for us but
for you) be ever-vigilant and always completely protected from intrusion.
This basically takes two forms:

Protective products: If your computer is ever connected to the Internet it's
insane to not have at least the following up-to-date products: Antivirus,
firewall, anti-spyware.*

Vigilance: "It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you." Use strong
passwords and NEVER, NEVER, NEVER give anyone your password (the one
exception: a tech support person whom you phoned--then change your password
after your problem is fixed). "It's not a secret if you ever tell anyone."
The Internet is full of very clever cons trying to get access to your credit
cards, bank accounts, computer, even your email accounts. Just don't let
them.

Finally, we need to clarify what you can do if you find yourself suddenly
not a member here.

First of all, contact us at:
californiadisasters-owner@yahoogroups.com
or
californiadisasters_discussion-owner@yahoogroups.com

We'll be able to tell you why your account was banned. If you can assure us
that you've recovered control of your account or you have a new account,
we'll coach you through rejoining.

Thanks for reading the whole way through. Hopefully, you'll never have a
problem.

Your Owner and Moderators

P.S. This will also be found in the Files section, titled "The Spam Problem
in Groups".

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* It's way beyond to scope of this group to provide security consultation.
Even so, if you don't even know where to start, write to the owner offgroup
and one of the mods might be able to get you pointed in the right direction.

------------------------------------

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