Spams, Spam Blockers, and Internet Identity Theft
[Happily I have now been rescued from the Blogger Spam Robot so that I can publish this set of warnings. Let me also add that people should NOT open postcard notices as they are apparently a new vehicle for the Storm Worm virus which grabs one's computer to send out spams -- and slows down one's own use thereby. There is a notice in Google of a removal service that one can down load. I don't know of it personally, but assume that it is legit. Ed Kent]
I am the owner of the 9 Yahoo groups in my signature below. I say owner only because that happens to be the internet name for those of us responsible for maintaining group lists. I set up 'mine' as public services in various areas where I have concerns, ranging from students and wider colleagues to rights and protections that as a social, political, legal philosopher I have spent the past 4 decades exploring and defending.
When I was offered spam blocking protection, I tried it in one instance, but discovered that it missed about 80% of the spams while blocking far too many valid posts -- often ones important for my attention as a teacher. So I have had spam blocking removed from most of my incoming mail. Each day I must check the group lists that I assist and usually find several messages spam blocked there which I must liberate as list manager. There is no pattern to these blockings that I can see. Some posters seem to have been singled out for blocking, perhaps because of their political dispositions? I don't know.
Another weird phenomenon is the recent practice of stealing identifies and email addresses for spam postings. I have been disconcerted in recent months to discover myself selling everything from X to the obscene things that slip through if one opens such mail. I gather than there is nothing that one can do about such things. But I worry that my identity is being identified as a spammer which I am not!
I figure that the spammers will always be ahead of the blocking systems. This past month I have been receiving an average daily of a dozen post card notices from a friend, relative, classmate, whatever which I routinely delete. Daily I must go through a 10 minute routine of deleting about 80% of the several hundred mailings that I receive. This is a small penalty to pay for the other 20% which involve communications with a wide variety of email friends from around the globe whom I have never met and access to sources -- publications around the world as well as valuable postings from a variety of areas within my spheres of concern.
The bottom line to this post, however, is that two days ago, I suddenly discovered that I could not post my most recent blog which was being listed as a 'draft' with a notice that I had been identified by the Blogger robot as a spammer. I was offered the opportunity to have a person review in several days to determine whether I would be permitted to continue blogging. So far no answer. But I send this post out as a warning to others. The Spam Blocker lurks and may spring out at you, too, when you least expect it. The two spams blocked were respectively an appeal for peace and an appeal for AIDS funding for people afflicted in this country who are now on lists that may get to them to provide medical care before they die -- or may not.
Will send this to my lists noted below -- and to the Blogger outfit. Anyone have some pull there? They seem to have no direct way to contact them with messages such as this. Will send this along to them, too, to block. Ed Kent
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
I am the owner of the 9 Yahoo groups in my signature below. I say owner only because that happens to be the internet name for those of us responsible for maintaining group lists. I set up 'mine' as public services in various areas where I have concerns, ranging from students and wider colleagues to rights and protections that as a social, political, legal philosopher I have spent the past 4 decades exploring and defending.
When I was offered spam blocking protection, I tried it in one instance, but discovered that it missed about 80% of the spams while blocking far too many valid posts -- often ones important for my attention as a teacher. So I have had spam blocking removed from most of my incoming mail. Each day I must check the group lists that I assist and usually find several messages spam blocked there which I must liberate as list manager. There is no pattern to these blockings that I can see. Some posters seem to have been singled out for blocking, perhaps because of their political dispositions? I don't know.
Another weird phenomenon is the recent practice of stealing identifies and email addresses for spam postings. I have been disconcerted in recent months to discover myself selling everything from X to the obscene things that slip through if one opens such mail. I gather than there is nothing that one can do about such things. But I worry that my identity is being identified as a spammer which I am not!
I figure that the spammers will always be ahead of the blocking systems. This past month I have been receiving an average daily of a dozen post card notices from a friend, relative, classmate, whatever which I routinely delete. Daily I must go through a 10 minute routine of deleting about 80% of the several hundred mailings that I receive. This is a small penalty to pay for the other 20% which involve communications with a wide variety of email friends from around the globe whom I have never met and access to sources -- publications around the world as well as valuable postings from a variety of areas within my spheres of concern.
The bottom line to this post, however, is that two days ago, I suddenly discovered that I could not post my most recent blog which was being listed as a 'draft' with a notice that I had been identified by the Blogger robot as a spammer. I was offered the opportunity to have a person review in several days to determine whether I would be permitted to continue blogging. So far no answer. But I send this post out as a warning to others. The Spam Blocker lurks and may spring out at you, too, when you least expect it. The two spams blocked were respectively an appeal for peace and an appeal for AIDS funding for people afflicted in this country who are now on lists that may get to them to provide medical care before they die -- or may not.
Will send this to my lists noted below -- and to the Blogger outfit. Anyone have some pull there? They seem to have no direct way to contact them with messages such as this. Will send this along to them, too, to block. Ed Kent
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 8:43 AM
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