scam messages -- caut related?

[Andrew Rudoff]

Well, you've been lucky so far.  Many of us get that message, along
with other spam, at a breathtaking rate.  Spam filters help, but
some amount always gets through before the filters can react.

Anything sent through the CAUT list itself would show up in the
list archives at: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/ so if you
suspect some spam has come to you through the list, you can check
there.

Both posting to the list and viewing the current member list are
restricted to list members.  This has been very effective so far
at keeping spam off the list, but keep in mind it would be trivial
for some spammer to subscribe to CAUT (we allow anyone on) and view
the list of subscribers.  Most spammers don't bother to do this since
it is too much work for just 250 email addrs (they can harvest millions
of addresses from web pages without bothering to subscribe to mailing lists).
You may have noticed that the addresses don't show up in email address
format when you view them on the list information page -- that is meant
to slow spammers down even more and make them go somewhere else where
the harvesting is easier.

But the bottom line is that we only make it inconvenient, not impossible,
for spammers to grab your address from the list.  There are many easier
ways to get your address and you should expect the unwanted spam to
continue to increase over time.  I recommend mail readers with built-in
"learning" spam filters.  They seem to work pretty well.

Finally, you can set your address to be "private" by going through
the menus at https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives.php/ (enter your
address at the bottom of the page and click "Unsubscribe or edit options"
and then look for the option "Conceal yourself from subscriber list?"
That will prevent spammers from seeing your address, even if they
subscribe so they can view the subscribers.

It is very doubtful peak.org can do anything, other than the standard
spam filtering, to help you (but don't let that stop you from trying!)

-andy


Susan Kline wrote:

> For the last week or so, I've been getting tons of varied email trying 
> to get me to send my account number in order to collect money from 
> Nigeria, Lagos, other places in Africa, etc. I've seen these for years, 
> but suddenly some network of these foreign scamsters has hold of my 
> email address and is really laying in the volume.
> 
> Usually, (LUCKILY) spam seems to pass me by -- possibly because peak.org 
> has good filters.
> 
> Has anyone else here experienced this? If a lot of us have, could 
> someone have hacked into the caut email address list? (Hopefully not 
> ...) If caut doesn't seem to be involved, I'll start forwarding the 
> messages to peak.org, and maybe they can figure it out.
> 
> Susan Kline
> _______________________________________________
> caut list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives