Recent spam surge...

[tellyaddict]

> As tellyaddict has said, I understand that if 
> a whitelisted e-mail address gets subscribed 
> to the list, the spammer can then forward 
> spam to all members (and the list archives).

The thing is though you don't actually have to be subscribed to the list to post to it. Anyone with an email address can post to the list. You only need to subscribe if you want the emails from the list to be sent to you. Some people might follow through the archives rather than subscribing but they can still contribute either way.

As you can see from the 3 FedEx Ground messages that have come through so far, they all come from different email addresses so although they are probably the same person/people, it makes it difficult to block them. If you did block those addresses, the spammers would just change to a new address and get back on the list.

I don't think this is from an account compromise.

I can't see any reason why people would need to use .zip files with this list at the moment. If anyone needs to post output, they can just attach a .txt file which would be harmless. It might be a good idea if .zip attachments were disallowed completely for now.

That wouldn't necessarily stop the spam emails, but would stop the potentially malicious .zip files that come with them. Having said that, if the spammers realise that the attachments they are sending aren't getting through they might give up.

If it is possible to remove our email addresses from the archives, that would help to make sure we don't individually become spam targets for these people.