[Oe List ...] salutations!

[Timothy Wegner]

George asked Joan:

> Hello, Did you send this or have you been hacked? I am always suspicious of a web site with no intro or orientation.

Yes Joan's email was hacked or spoofed and yes you should be
suspicious. And in these circumstances, never click on the link no
matter how curious you are.

I would ask everybody not to post questions or statements about these
sort of spam messages to the list, because they just add noise to the
list. For example, posting something like "Joan was hacked!!!!"
doesn't help, adds noise, and is nearly as bad as the original spam.
I'm even reluctant to post this sort of explanatory message, so I
rarely do, but from time to time it seems necessary .

By all means email me me privately if you see list postings that look
like spam. I am fairly vigilant but don't see everything. Or email the
person privately.  What I do when I see spam messages posted to the
list by list members is put the offending email on moderation status,
so they cannot post without my approval. This at least protects the
list from more spam. After some time goes by with no problems, I set
their account back to normal.

If this happens to you, the first thing to do is change your email
password. Might not help, but it for sure won't hurt.

Tim