Marty:
 
You said:
 
> Isn't the IAF.NET discussion more appropriate to SPAM-L?
 
I wondered the same thing, but then I thought: "Did they send a SPAM?" No.
"Does it seem apparent they are *going* to send a SPAM?" No.  What they
have done is something new and maybe a new list needs to be made for it,
but then when I thought about it, I felt like the "LISTSERV list owners'
forum" seemed like just the right place; a place where LISTSERV list
owners can exchange and discuss information that pertains to owning a
list.   Since I expect that few list owners actually subscribe to the
LSTOWN-L and since I expect even fewer subscribe to SPAM-L, in terms of
getting the word out about what happened, this list seems like the best
place, although it is not ideal, since all list owners are not present,
but it is certainly better than keeping it even quietr on the SPAM-L list.
 
This IAF issue *definitely* has implications to LIST owners who (thanks to
LISTSERV) don't get hit with actual SPAMS very often any more and would
never hear about the IAF issue because they were not, had no need, to be
subscribed to SPAM-L.  The list owners should be aware of how they can
deal with the current problem (getting the addresses from their list off
the IAF machine) and protect themselves from future attacks of a similar
nature.
 
Perhaps in addition to the SPAM detector, LISTSERV 1.8c could have a MASS
SUBSCRIBE detector which will automatically serve out anyone who suddenly
tries to subscribe to a gazillion lists for whatever purpose.  The
alternative to subbing it out would be that, for the pre-set period,
LISTSERV would forward all subscription requests from that person (with a
pretext warning) to the Owner for approval, regardless of whether the list
had a Subscription= By Owner.
 
If there is a consensus solution on what IAF can do to fix it, and they
agree to fix it (some of the communications from them seem leaning that
way), then I think that a message should be sent to the
LISTSERV-postmaster for every LISTSERV on the planet to inform them of the
deal and what can/should be done to indicate your list may or may not be
used by IAF or anyone else.  These postmasters could then send the word to
the list owners on their system.
 
Like I said, this seems like discussion for here, or perhaps LSTSRV-L.  I
hope you don't mind my disagreeing with you Marty, but I'm thinking of
the multitude of mom-and-pop list owners who have little idea there is a
LSTOWN-L, LSTSRV-L, or SPAM-L and wouldn't know what to make of all this
even if they *did* have a subscription to all three.
 
Cheers
 
Mark Hunnibell                  Email: [log in to unmask]
KIDLINK Gopher/WWW Coordinator  http://www.connix.com/~markh/index.html