[afnog] Here's an invitation

[Brian Candler]

On Tue, Aug 22, 2006 at 08:28:31AM +0300, Mike Barnard wrote:
>    Report this message as spam: [1]Here
> 
>    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>    this is the right place to click

No, you have missed the point. This link is within a spam, which was written
by a spammer, and points to the spammer's own website. Look at the URL:

>    1. http://playtoday17e.com/go.asp?id=3&friend=francis&email=0772541315@mtn.co.ug

Therefore, clicking on this link is pretty much the same as replying to the
spam: you confirm that your E-mail address is active, and so you will end up
getting more spam.

Reporting spam involves a much harder process of decoding the Received:
headers of the mail to find out what IP address it originated from, and
cross-referencing to registry data to find out the ISP which hosts it.

As to how this mail got onto the list in the first place: is
anyfrancis at yahoo.com a member of the list?

If not, then the mailing list server has been wrongly configured. Perhaps
this was missed in the recent migration, but I believe it should block
postings from non-members.

If this address *is* a member of the list, then either:
1. their machine has become virus-infected; or
2. this is an AFNOG person who really did send a spam to the list; or
3. the spammer has been lucky to send a mail which appears to be from a list
member. It is only a matter of time before spammers start harvesting mailing
list member addresses and associating them with the lists they are on.

Regards,

Brian.