THE RECENT “SPAMMING” INCIDENT: A BRIEF REPORT.

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

Dear all,

First. I would like to apologize for the objectionable and somewhat disturbing “intrusion” that occurred about three weeks ago. It appears that it was made possible by the fact that our system had been programmed to automatically accept all membership requests. This approach based on (naïve) trust on my part had worked well until the Forum was unfortunately discovered by the “spammers”.

Daryl Habel and I have been spending a fair bit of time, over the last two weeks, in order to rectify the situation. Here is a brief summary of the measures that have been taken so far:

- all new candidates for membership are automatically placed in a “holding tank”, awaiting “approval”;

- for the time being, the screening procedure we have come up with is relatively simple; the obvious or highly dubious candidates are systematically rejected; all the others, potentially genuine candidates whose credentials are not necessarily apparent are sent a copy of the following letter:

Dear …

This is to let you know that your request to become a member of the PALANTH Forum has been received. In order to activate your account we need to receive from you, within the next two or three days, a brief statement regarding who you are and why you want to join in. Please keep in mind that your statement and eventual participation have to meet the basic principles enunciated in the “Forum Policy which can be read at:

http://forum.palanth.com/index.php/topic,19.0.html

Thanks for your interest and looking forward to reading you.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

So far, this note has been sent to about eight “candidates”. Five emails have bounced (fictitious addresses), and the other three have yet to be replied to.

For all of us and the Forum, I can only hope that these measures will take care – sooner rather than later -- of the present “infestation”.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[rmacfarl]

Dear all,

First. I would like to apologize for the objectionable and somewhat disturbing “intrusion” that occurred about three weeks ago. It appears that it was made possible by the fact that our system had been programmed to automatically accept all membership requests. This approach based on (naïve) trust on my part had worked well until the Forum was unfortunately discovered by the “spammers”.

Daryl Habel and I have been spending a fair bit of time, over the last two weeks, in order to rectify the situation. Here is a brief summary of the measures that have been taken so far:

- all new candidates for membership are automatically placed in a “holding tank”, awaiting “approval”;

- for the time being, the screening procedure we have come up with is relatively simple; the obvious or highly dubious candidates are systematically rejected; all the others, potentially genuine candidates whose credentials are not necessarily apparent are sent a copy of the following letter:

...

Jacques Cinq-Mars

Jacques,

Thanks for the update & for the time you put in to moderate this forum. I had been concerned that some members had suggested elsewhere that they would leave the forum after the recent incident, which is why I had asked for the update on the actions which you have now so ably enacted. Hopefully we won't now lose any genuine members & the forum can continue its high-quality discourse as before...

Regards,

Ross Macfarlane