Tweets:

Several members have let us know that they have been receiving spam masquerading as Tweeters postings. The "Subject:" line starts with "[Tweeters]" and is typically followed by the subject of an actual message posted earlier by the person receiving the spam message. Yesterday I got one of these spam messages myself. Like the others we have heard about it is of "lonely babe" variety -- the kind on whose website link your mother warned you never to click.

We brought this development to the attention of the UW Information Technology Center, which hosts the Tweeters list and hundreds of others, to see if they could help. We received a prompt and courteous reply (as always), with this explanation:

"It is our understanding that some sort of spam bot got a hold of the online list with all the public UW Mailman lists and has been bulk spamming them. We've received notification from many listowners and we are currently working on a solution," adding that they hoped to resolve the matter soon.

In addition, they advised list owners to change several administrative settings. We have complied. As UW IT points out, "Unfortunately doing this now will not completely reduce the spam messages, but it should help."

If you are receiving an annoying volume of these messages you do have the option of changing your Tweeters subscription to a new address. Spam filters on your own accounts may also help -- the fact that some Tweeters subscribers have received many of these garbage messages and others none seems to suggest that. Right now we have nothing better to offer, but if any of you has tips for deflecting these messages, or other useful observations, please let us know. We will check them out with the UW folks and, based on their recommendations, share them with the list.

Hal Opperman and Dan Victor
tweeters-owner at mailman1.u.washington.edu