News Boquete status update

Reply To:	Bud Huber <bud.huber@grommet.net>

Earlier this week you were informed that our email distribution system was experiencing difficulties and that we were running on a backup server. That problem has now been fixed and normal service operation has been restored. The few subscription change requests that were temporarily suspended have now been processed, and all messages have been completed and cleared from the queue.

The remainder of this message concerns topic number two from our prior message -- the subject being that of the spammers operating in our area.

You can stop reading here if you are not interested in the spamming matter affecting Boquete.

We also discussed in overview the "alternate email distribution system" that is mimicking our free community service. We received many messages from you, all supportive of our efforts and less than complementary about the commercial spammers. I need to correct one misstatement from the prior message, and that is that apparently two people were successful in getting their email addresses removed from the spammers distribution list. The common aspect of both of those reports was that their action was very early on when the spammers went into operation. Other than those two reports, every other report coming to our attention is that they have been unsuccessful in getting their email addresses removed.

Further, many of you mentioned various actions that we all can take to help minimize the spread of spam. The most commonly mentioned thing was for each of us to use the "bcc" addressing capabilities of our email clients rather than the "to" or the "cc" option. If you send an email to only one person, then little is gained by this recommendation, but if you send an email to many people using either the "to" or the "cc" address header, then you help publicize the email addresses of other people and facilitate the harvesting of email addresses by spammers. For the record, News Boquete  always address each outgoing message to one person only, and so we already have implemented procedures to help protect your privacy. There were other recommendations that came to us, including the recommendation that each of us tell the businesses that purchased this spammer's services that they are hurting their business rather than helping their business.

There were some requests for News Boquete to publish the names and contact information for each of the businesses involved in the unwanted spam emails. We cannot do that without a risk of opening ourselves up to legal action. We can tell you that the spammers are now in the process of moving their email service over to AOL (away from Gmail and Yahoo). Their new email address is <boquetebusinessnews@aol.com>. Perhaps this change of service provider was necessary because many people have been reporting the Gmail and Yahoo addresses being used as spamming. Along this line, AOL also has a strong anti-spam policy, and you may learn more about AOL's policy against spam at http://postmaster.aol.com/Postmaster.FAQ.php.

Here is an extract from AOL documentation (highlighted is the most important contact point; note the last item in that AOL needs full header information; that is important; click on that link for instructions for how to provide full headers):

I am getting harassed or spammed by an AOL member. To whom can I report the problem?

• In the event of harassment that requires intervention by law enforcement, please contact AOL Legal
• You can forward reports of Internet email abuse involving AOL Member accounts to TOSEmail1@aol.com.
• Reports of Usenet, IRC, Internet security issues (denial of services attacks, hacking, mailbombs, etc.) should be sent to TOSGeneral@aol.com.
• When reporting junk, abusive or unwanted e-mail from AOL Members, please forward the full text of the message along with the full header information. Lacking the header information, we cannot determine the actual source of the email.

And finally, for additional information about the free community service (that is subscription based at your request) known as News Boquete can be found at http://www.boqueteforums.org/index.php?showtopic=4292

Sincerely,

Penny and Bud

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