OT: Good news: some spammers' accounts disabled

[Steve Hayes]

It seems that the gmail accounts of some of the spammers who have been
pestering several newsgroups have been disabled.

<***@gmail.com>
<***@gmail.com>

are two of them.

Let's hope the rest get dealt with too.

[unknown]

+ User FidoNet address: 1:124/5016
Steve wrote:
S> From: Steve Hayes <***@telkomsa.net>
S>
S> It seems that the gmail accounts of some of the spammers who have been
S> pestering several newsgroups have been disabled.
S>
S> <***@gmail.com>
S> <***@gmail.com>
S>
S> are two of them.
S>
S> Let's hope the rest get dealt with too.
S>
S>
They're probably forged anyway. nntp is such an insecure protocol that it's
easy to spoof other addresses.
--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ The FidoNet News Gate (Huntsville, AL - USA) +
+ The views of this user are strictly his or her own. +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[Steve Hayes]

On Mon, 06 Nov 2018 03:28:33 , "Nigel Reed"

Post by unknown
+ User FidoNet address: 1:124/5016
S>
S> It seems that the gmail accounts of some of the spammers who have been
S> pestering several newsgroups have been disabled.
S>
S>
S> are two of them.
S>
S> Let's hope the rest get dealt with too.
S>
S>
They're probably forged anyway. nntp is such an insecure protocol that it's
easy to spoof other addresses.

I doubt that they were forged, but I'm glad to see from your sig that
SGB is still being gated to Fidonet.

[Doug Laidlaw]

Post by Steve Hayes
On Mon, 06 Nov 2018 03:28:33 , "Nigel Reed"

Post by unknown
+ User FidoNet address: 1:124/5016
S>
S> It seems that the gmail accounts of some of the spammers who have been
S> pestering several newsgroups have been disabled.
S>
S>
S> are two of them.
S>
S> Let's hope the rest get dealt with too.
S>
S>
They're probably forged anyway. nntp is such an insecure protocol that it's
easy to spoof other addresses.

I doubt that they were forged, but I'm glad to see from your sig that
SGB is still being gated to Fidonet.

How do you know that they have been disabled, and not just gone quiet?

[Steve Hayes]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2018 00:46:07 +1100, Doug Laidlaw

Post by Doug Laidlaw

Post by Steve Hayes
On Mon, 06 Nov 2018 03:28:33 , "Nigel Reed"

Post by unknown
+ User FidoNet address: 1:124/5016
S>
S> It seems that the gmail accounts of some of the spammers who have been
S> pestering several newsgroups have been disabled.
S>
S>
S> are two of them.
S>
S> Let's hope the rest get dealt with too.
S>
S>
They're probably forged anyway. nntp is such an insecure protocol that it's
easy to spoof other addresses.

I doubt that they were forged, but I'm glad to see from your sig that
SGB is still being gated to Fidonet.

How do you know that they have been disabled, and not just gone quiet?

Because the mail sent to their addresses bounced, and that was the
explanation.

[MB]

I thought most of them just keep using new addresses. I set Thunderbird
to delete them but just to clear any other recent Spam from them - they
often seem to send a bunch of messages over a short time and never seen
again.

Of course Thunderbird has the major failing that it is messy to block an
address in all newsgroups because the default only applies to one newsgroup.

[Evertjan.]

Post by MB
I thought most of them just keep using new addresses. I set Thunderbird
to delete them but just to clear any other recent Spam from them - they
often seem to send a bunch of messages over a short time and never seen
again.
Of course Thunderbird has the major failing that it is messy to block an
address in all newsgroups because the default only applies to one newsgroup.

XNews is still the best, only because there are no better ones.

[Chris Pitt Lewis]

Post by Steve Hayes
It seems that the gmail accounts of some of the spammers who have been
pestering several newsgroups have been disabled.
are two of them.
Let's hope the rest get dealt with too.

Pyrrhic victory though, isn't it, because google groups has now dropped
this group, including apparently its 20 year archive. As the rootsweb
gateway has also gone, and the rootsweb list is broken, hardly anyone
will now find the group, so the on topic postings are lost as well.

[john]

Post by Chris Pitt Lewis

Post by Steve Hayes
It seems that the gmail accounts of some of the spammers who have been
pestering several newsgroups have been disabled.
are two of them.
Let's hope the rest get dealt with too.

Pyrrhic victory though, isn't it, because google groups has now dropped
this group, including apparently its 20 year archive. As the rootsweb
gateway has also gone, and the rootsweb list is broken, hardly anyone
will now find the group, so the on topic postings are lost as well.

For information, soc.genealogy.britain is freely available online in the
Narchive newsgroup archive at https://soc.genealogy.britain.narkive.com

As the archive is threaded, the 4900+ offending spam messages are all
clustered together in about a dozen threads. So the other 211,100+ the
posts in 24,000+ threads are easy to search and view.

I assume it is updated in batch as currently the last post is from two
days ago.

[Evertjan.]

Post by john
For information, soc.genealogy.britain is freely available online in the
Narchive newsgroup archive at https://soc.genealogy.britain.narkive.com
As the archive is threaded, the 4900+ offending spam messages are all
clustered together in about a dozen threads. So the other 211,100+ the
posts in 24,000+ threads are easy to search and view.

However, Narkive's search engine is currently broken.

[john]

Post by Evertjan.

Post by john
For information, soc.genealogy.britain is freely available online in the
Narchive newsgroup archive at https://soc.genealogy.britain.narkive.com
As the archive is threaded, the 4900+ offending spam messages are all
clustered together in about a dozen threads. So the other 211,100+ the
posts in 24,000+ threads are easy to search and view.

However, Narkive's search engine is currently broken.

There are other options
You can use the Google search syntax:
site:websiteaddress searchterm
(see https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en)
instead e.g.
site:soc.genealogy.britain.narkive.com evertjan Worrell
site:soc.genealogy.britain.narkive.com evertjan -Worrell (= NOT Worrell)
work

or just use the Advance search form and include the web site
https://www.google.com/advanced_search

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Post by Chris Pitt Lewis

Post by Steve Hayes
It seems that the gmail accounts of some of the spammers who have been
pestering several newsgroups have been disabled.
are two of them.
Let's hope the rest get dealt with too.

Pyrrhic victory though, isn't it, because google groups has now dropped
this group, including apparently its 20 year archive. As the rootsweb
gateway has also gone, and the rootsweb list is broken, hardly anyone
will now find the group, so the on topic postings are lost as well.

Well, find it without looking for it, probably not; those of us who use
it via newsservers (I get it via eternal-september) won't have too much
problem in continuing to use it. Sad about the archive though. (They
could have kept the archive, just dropped postings after a certain
date.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)***@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"He who will not reason is a bigot;
he who cannot is a fool;
he who dares not is a slave."
- Sir William Drummond

Above all things, use your mind.
Don't be that bigot, fool, or slave.

[john]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)

Post by Chris Pitt Lewis

Post by Steve Hayes
It seems that the gmail accounts of some of the spammers who have been
pestering several newsgroups have been disabled.
are two of them.
Let's hope the rest get dealt with too.

Pyrrhic victory though, isn't it, because google groups has now dropped
this group, including apparently its 20 year archive. As the rootsweb
gateway has also gone, and the rootsweb list is broken, hardly anyone
will now find the group, so the on topic postings are lost as well.

Well, find it without looking for it, probably not; those of us who use
it via newsservers (I get it via eternal-september) won't have too much
problem in continuing to use it. Sad about the archive though. (They
could have kept the archive, just dropped postings after a certain
date.)

The archive is still available in Google Groups, but hidden (and no
longer updated). Whether it will remain is another matter.
You need to go to soc.genealogy.britain in google groups
(https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/soc.genealogy.britain) and then
search for soc.genealogy.britain in the supposedly empty result. e.g.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/soc.genealogy.britain/soc.genealogy.britain|sort:date
and you can still add search terms e.g. you can search for
soc.genealogy.britain gilliver
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/soc.genealogy.britain/soc.genealogy.britain$20gilliver|sort:date

And adding negating search terms e.g. -girls -horny
removes most of the spam (but may remove some genuine posts)
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/soc.genealogy.britain/soc.genealogy.britain$20-girls$20-booty$20-horny|sort:date

[Steve Hayes]

Post by Chris Pitt Lewis

Post by Steve Hayes
It seems that the gmail accounts of some of the spammers who have been
pestering several newsgroups have been disabled.
are two of them.
Let's hope the rest get dealt with too.

Pyrrhic victory though, isn't it, because google groups has now dropped
this group, including apparently its 20 year archive. As the rootsweb
gateway has also gone, and the rootsweb list is broken, hardly anyone
will now find the group, so the on topic postings are lost as well.

Well isn't that what some members of this group have always wanted?
They were always saying that they blocked members who posted via
Googlegroups, and were always complaining about people who replied to
old messages, so they should be rejoicing at the loss of the archive
and the disconnection from GoogleGroups.

[Evertjan.]

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Chris Pitt Lewis
Pyrrhic victory though, isn't it, because google groups has now dropped
this group, including apparently its 20 year archive. As the rootsweb
gateway has also gone, and the rootsweb list is broken, hardly anyone
will now find the group, so the on topic postings are lost as well.

Well isn't that what some members of this group have always wanted?
They were always saying that they blocked members who posted via
Googlegroups, and were always complaining about people who replied to
old messages, so they should be rejoicing at the loss of the archive
and the disconnection from GoogleGroups.

Since 1995 DejaNews was Steve Madere's search archive from 1981 of all
Usenet text groups.

In 2001 Google bought the archive and domains and included a web interface
for using Usenet.

For many of us, the rest is abhorrent history. Google converted this now
renamed to Google Groups service in a way that diminished the archive
service to what it presently is.

[Tickettyboo]

Post by Steve Hayes
It seems that the gmail accounts of some of the spammers who have been
pestering several newsgroups have been disabled.
are two of them.
Let's hope the rest get dealt with too.

I saw very little of this spam, NIN is reasonably good at filtering.
Mostly what I did see was you replying to it, as if they were actually
going to read your replies.