As many of you may know, there continue to be serious email problems with all
hotmail.com addresses subscribed to email lists.  Briefly, there are 2
problems.  One is misdirected mail, where a hotmail.com user receives mail in
their mailbox from several or many other lists to which they are not
subscribed.  The second and related problem is that the user may receive many
multiple copies of some of these same messages.

Both of these problems are occurring internally at hotmail and are NOT caused
by any faulty mail delivery from *.lsoft.com hosts or *.stjohns.edu or other
affected host sites.  We have received many end-user complaints but since the
problem is internal to hotmail.com we cannot accomplish a 'fix'.  The Hotmail
technical staff are aware of the problem and are working on it.  Hotmail users
should address complaints to these addresses:

 [log in to unmask]
 [log in to unmask]
 [log in to unmask]
 [log in to unmask]

However there are privacy and security issues involved.  Some List Owners use
hotmail.com accounts to administer their lists.  We have received reports that
in some cases list owner and/or list member passwords have been exposed in
some of these misdirected mail messages.  Also we have reports from a number
of lists which normally discuss highly personal and private matters that their
messages are going astray as well.  These exposures are very unfortunate.

Because of our concern for these matters, L-Soft recommends that all List
Owners take the following steps.  We also ask all Site Administrators to pass
along this information to their List Owners as applicable.

1.  Do not use a hotmail.com account to administer your list.  There is a risk
that your password could be compromised.  Use another email account.

2.  If you already have used a hotmail account for list administration you
should use the PW RESET command to cancel your existing password associated
with that hotmail.com address.  At this time it is NOT recommended that you
obtain a new password since that also can be compromised.  Use a different
mail account.

3.  Owners of lists discussing sensitive material should know their
subscribers private affairs are at risk of exposure.  If you run such a list,
we recommend you set all hotmail.com subscribers to NOMAIL NOPOST.  You can do
this easily with the command:

   SET * NOMAIL NOPOST FOR *@hotmail.com

The alternative is to HOLD your list, thereby freezing ALL mail activity for
your list.  List Owners are best equipped to evaluate the nature of their
list(s) and the risks and consequences of exposure for their own subscribers
and then take action as they deem appropriate.  We strongly recommend you take
some action to protect your subscribers during this period if you have any
doubts about this.  Needless to say you should also let your subscribers know
what is going on.

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 __________________________________________________________________
 Ben Parker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . L-Soft international Inc.
 [log in to unmask]  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Support Engineer