I'm not going to moderate the list, at least not without a poll asking
me to.

What I did do is set it to only members can post. That means it will
be a hassle for newbies and people who want to send in clues but don't
want to be on the list. It will create a "members only" vibe, which seems
pretty sick to me, but less sick than moderation. If people disagree, then
it can be changed.

All of the messages I checked came from non-members (well, one non-member
really). You can't ban non-members. I did ban this person from joining
the list. If you feel like it, send nasty messages to abuse@their.isp

Now, if a virus comes to the list, it will be from a member. If that
happens, the member will be banned or moderated, depending on my mood
and depending if I have time to figure out who it is. Since I don't run
anti-virus software, I just sort of look at the thing and see if it looks
like a virus, or if someone tells me its a virus I'll ban the sender.

Clean up your systems and stop using vulnerable software. I have no
patience for people who insist on using vulnerable software and them
ask me to deal with list settings to prevent viruses and restrict flow
of content. Sorry.

This is a temporary solution. The list can decide what the long term
solution should be. Note that this particular worm is designed to
be around a long time.

Cheers
Randy

Randy wrote:
>Now, if a virus comes to the list, it will be from a member. If that
>happens, the member will be banned or moderated, depending on my mood
>and depending if I have time to figure out who it is. Since I don't run
>anti-virus software, I just sort of look at the thing and see if it looks
>like a virus, or if someone tells me its a virus I'll ban the sender.


You do know that the virus that seems to be coming to the list is the
one that fakes the "from" email address?

A virus could still come from a non-member if the virus faked the
"from" address. That would fool Yahoo into think it came from a
member.

Banning the sender of the email isn't fair, in my opinion. I have
gotten several "unable to deliver" messages sent to my email address,
though I have not sent the email that is included in the
returned/unable to deliver message.

I think banning attachments, and leaving the list open for anyone to
post to it, would be the best option.

By the way, if anyone gets a virus from my address, it's impossible
that it really came from me. With an virus program, NO addressbook
(yes, you read that right -- even if I got a virus that could thwart
my email proram, it could not send email to anyone because I have no
addressbook), Eudora for my email, and a Macintosh computer, there is
no way for the virus to come from me.

-C, really, REALLY glad she does not use a Windows machine.

>
> I think banning attachments, and leaving the list open for anyone to
> post to it, would be the best option.

There are perfectly valid reasons that attachments should be
permitted. Not all clues posted here are in text. Some of the most
clever letterboxers have been known to use paintings, maps and audio
files as clues. Banning these would be ludicrous. Funhog

> You do know that the virus that seems to be coming to the list is the
> one that fakes the "from" email address?

Yes, I work in internet security for a living.

> A virus could still come from a non-member if the virus faked the
> "from" address. That would fool Yahoo into think it came from a
> member.

Tnen that would be a yahoo bug. If that's the case, we'll deal with
it. I would hope that yahoo's system is more sophisticated than that
(but come to think of it, it prolly isn't). In any case, of all the
messages I examined, in no case was the From: a member. Also, keep in
mind that there is no 100% solution as long as people are allowed to
post ... if yahoo doesn't detect From: spoofing, and the From: happens
to be one of the 443 addresses on the list, one will get thru once in
a while ...

> Banning the sender of the email isn't fair, in my opinion. I have
> gotten several "unable to deliver" messages sent to my email address,
> though I have not sent the email that is included in the
> returned/unable to deliver message.

I can usually determine who actually sent the mail from the transit
headers (or at least can tell if the headers are forged -- or who didn't
send it, anyway). I think it was more an idle threat in any case :-)

> I think banning attachments, and leaving the list open for anyone to
> post to it, would be the best option.

Except that people like sending clues to the list via attachments.

I guess I'm philosophically apposed to allowing a few idiots to compromise
the functionality of the list ... its sort of like being afraid to fly.
I'd rather try to ban the idiots than legitimate uses of the list.

(and if you ban attachments, you will still get a ton of annoying empty
messages, which doesn't seem like as elegant a solution).

Cheers
Randy

>There are perfectly valid reasons that attachments should be
>permitted. Not all clues posted here are in text. Some of the most
>clever letterboxers have been known to use paintings, maps and audio
>files as clues. Banning these would be ludicrous. Funhog

That's a valid point I hadn't thought of...

-C

funhog1 astutely observed:

> There are perfectly valid reasons that attachments should be
> permitted. [...] Some of the most clever letterboxers have
> been known to [...]. Banning these would be ludicrous.

I imagine there are perfectly valid reasons to allow non-members
to post as well. My guess is that those reasons underlie why it
has been that way for several years.

I think what it comes down to is that some have felt this list
is different than "traditional" lists. It is not to talk about
letterboxing, but rather one of the toys in the toybox to play
letterboxing. So that makes it different than a list where you
talk about fixing cars or something. Thus, no moderator has the
right to decide who should play, and how they should play, or if
a particular post constitutes junk or play. I guess those who
aren't configured to filter viruses and spam right about now
aren't seeing this the same way :-) I guess those who have thought
this way are a smaller and smaller percentage. I guess some have
felt that since to get on the net you have to configure your system
to deal with the junk anyway, that it is a no-brainer (now, those
who are configured lose a cool toy, and gain nothing, for no benefit
to anyone except those whose sole internet experience is this list.
Not a good deal.)

I'll drop it now. At least this way, those affected have no voice,
so it will prolly not come up again. I just wanted to explain to
those with ears to hear that there is a reason the list is the way
it is, and that that reason is not that the moderator is an idiot
who doesn't know how to point his browser at the list configuration
options on yahoo :-)

(BTW Eliza, I didn't intend to offend you (or anyone), but I won't
back down from the attitude that those who do not know how to
operate a computer safely should not be on a public network (an apt
analogy comes to mind ...) but I'll admit this attitude is off-topic.

Cheers
Randy
Who will miss Capt. Aubrey, non-member clues, and other pranks ...

PS, since I made the change yesterday, yahoo set my preferences
to convert mail to html for some reason. If anyone else is experiencing
this annoying conversion, that is the reason, tho changing it back hasn't
fixed it, at least on messages posted from the web site ... I still
may continue to tinker with the configs or change it back, but prolly
won't talk more about it ...

excellent idea. I belong to another loop for 2+ years and have NEVER ONCE
had a virus or spam sent to it.

Toni

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eliza B. [SMTP:yahoo@moderngypsy.com]
> Sent: Saturday, June 08, 2002 1:50 PM
> To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [LbNA] might I suggest (about viruses)
>
> Due to the overwhelming amount of cr*p that's posted to this list by,
> I'm assuming, people that are just connecting to send either viruses or
> spam, could the moderators set the list status to "moderated" for a
> while? There's a way through Yahoo that allows you to moderate only
> someone's first post (rejecting it before it's posted if it's stupid
> stuff or accepting if it's an actual letterbox-related post), which
> would probably stop all this completely.
>
> (I moderate another list and we don't even get the people -trying-, when
> they see the list is set to moderated. I haven't had a single
> virus/spam post there in more than three months.)
>
> And if it's time that's the consideration, I'd be glad to help moderate
> the first-posts.
>
> ---e
>
>
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