[Tango-L] Spam sent to Tango-L list

[Shahrukh Merchant]

Some readers directed my attention to several "kiddie porn" spam emails 
sent to Tango-L this morning.

As you know, most spam is sent from fake email addresses and hence never 
makes it to the list (which requires that one be subscribed in order to 
post), but this was apparently a "real" one, since it needs to receive a 
confirmation email in order to subscribe and consequently to post. After 
receiving the confirmation, a test message was sent to the list to see 
if it worked, followed by the spam emails. Some or part of this process 
was probably done by an automated script. The Tango-L list was probably 
chosen at random among others--it is highly unlikely that the spammer is 
part of any Tango community.

The following actions have been taken:

1. That particular user has, of course, been blocked (although it is not 
likely that the same person will try again with the same email address).

2. A request has been sent to the server maintainers to remove the 
offending items from the archives, although this won't be instant 
(although I have got an acknowledgement from them).

3. New subscribers to the list are now moderated by default. Generally a 
spammer will not go through the trouble of sending several legitimate 
emails on a subject as obscure (to most people) as Tango in order to get 
off moderation and send spam. Many lists do this by default for just 
this reason (and secondariy to catch some newbie-poster errors), though 
Tango-L hasn't had to until now. This does create some inconvenience for 
both legitimate new posters who have their posts delayed, and for the 
list administrators who have to review these additional posts. (It is 
theoretically possible that a spammer has already subscribed and thus 
won't be blocked by this "new subscriber on moderation" method and is 
lying in wait to spam at a later date, but I doubt it--spammers 
typically don't have that kind of attention span.)

Oh, and by the way, morality issues aside, as a strictly practical 
matter I would highly recommend not visiting any of the sites 
"advertised" in the spam emails as it is likely to infect your computer 
with spyware or a virus or a Trojan horse of some kind (or make a 
determined attempt to do so), if you don't have all your virus 
protection and security updates in place and uptodate.

Shahrukh Merchant
Tango-L administrator
Tango-L-owner at mit.edu