Hello;
 
On   the    afternoon   of   Dec.    31,   someone   send   a    message   to
[log in to unmask]  It  contained  a  LIST  GLOBAL  command.  This  same
message was  sent several times.  The message  was identified as  coming from
[log in to unmask]  Starting last  night,  Jan. 1,  the  Listserv here  again
received such a request, however, this  time, several thousand of them and it
spent about at least 6 hours sending the output of the LIST GLOBAL command to
Steve Case.
 
It seems as if someone (or some software) at AOL got wise this morning at the
huge influx of global Listserv list messages coming into AOL's President from
here and the  messages were subsequently rejected and all  spooled back here.
The  huge influx  of thousands  of these  rejected LIST  GLOBAL output  files
nearly  shut  down  this  system.   Fortunately,  an  alert  systems  manager
contacted  me about  the  problem and  the files  were  dumped before  enough
accumulated to shut our system down.
 
It looks as if someone has a  grudge against Steve Case and used the Listserv
at Temple to  show his or her  displeasure. I guess this could  be the result
of a  technical glitch, but  I doubt  it. I suggest  that you all  be careful
that your Listserv  is not misused by  this same prankster. We  are still not
sure where the LIST GLOBAL requests really  came from, but I asked one of the
people who runs this system to check into it.
 
I  am very  unhappy about  this incident  and I  have escallated  this to  my
management. I am not  hopeful in finding out who was  behind this lunacy, but
if we can track this down, I am am tempted to urge my employer to press legal
charges against this vandal  in order to try to recoupe the 6+ hours worth of
computer time this idiot consumed and to prevent this from happening again.
 
Stan Horwitz
Listserv Postmaster
Temple University
Acknowledge to: OASIS@TEMPLEVM (or VM.TEMPLE.EDU)