On Thu, Feb 04, 2010 at 12:35:06PM +0530, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:

abuse@gmail.com maybe? Looks like some random spammer based in Dubai judging by the airport code.

yeah, tried that several times. seems to go to a black hole. i've engaged the spammer, and they are telling me that they feel it is ok to subscribe people to their group, because it sends out a subscription notice, as well as an unsubscribe link. they seem to be quite happy to use an @gmail account, and use google groups to propagate their spam. most recently, i got from them: "Yes you are right, you can complain to Google, but to complain, you have a right email address, because this address we don't have listed." so, they are not concerned about being reported to google. very odd. is this a legitimate google groups activity? someone can set up and say "well, yeah, he musta gone to one of our websites or something, how else would he get on our list?" and google is ok with that? geez, "do no harm" really? --jim

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 11:37 AM, Jim Mercer <jim@reptiles.org> wrote:

...

we have recently started getting alot of spam, out of dubai, from "ecampaigners.dxb@gmail.com"

all of the spam comes from/through google and google groups.

is this accepted/supported activity on google?

if not, where might i find a contact who can cluefully respond?

-- Suresh Ramasubramanian (ops.lists@gmail.com)

-- Jim Mercer jim@reptiles.org +92 336 520-4504 "I'm Prime Minister of Canada, I live here and I'm going to take a leak." - Lester Pearson in 1967, during a meeting between himself and President Lyndon Johnson, whose Secret Service detail had taken over Pearson's cottage retreat. At one point, a Johnson guard asked Pearson, "Who are you and where are you going?"

On Thu, Feb 04, 2010 at 02:49:42AM -0500, David Ford wrote:

Google groups cautions you about pre-emptively adding people if you choose this method of subscribing them.

"here, have some free guns. oh, by the way, its probably bad if you go around shooting people, so don't do that." it is starting too look to me like google is quite happy to host spammers. or, at best, doesn't care if spammers use them to host their services.

On 02/04/10 02:12, Jim Mercer wrote:

...

[...] and google is ok with that?

geez, "do no harm"

really?

--jim

-- Jim Mercer jim@reptiles.org +92 336 520-4504 "I'm Prime Minister of Canada, I live here and I'm going to take a leak." - Lester Pearson in 1967, during a meeting between himself and President Lyndon Johnson, whose Secret Service detail had taken over Pearson's cottage retreat. At one point, a Johnson guard asked Pearson, "Who are you and where are you going?"

* David Ford:

I feel fairly sure in saying that most mailing list software, newsgroup software, and communication software in general, will allow you to preemptively add people to your address book, subscription lists, etc.

But most injection points are blacklisted quickly when this happens.

On Thu, Feb 04, 2010 at 05:35:23PM -0600, Tony Varriale wrote:

From: "Jim Mercer" <jim@reptiles.org>

...

we have recently started getting alot of spam, out of dubai, from "ecampaigners.dxb@gmail.com"

all of the spam comes from/through google and google groups.

Not that I can point you in the correct direction, but Google Groups is a haven for spammers. In fact, I stopped using it a while ago for this reason.

the issue for me is not that they are spamming groups within google groups, but that they are signing up the victim email addresses as members of the group, then using google groups to distribute the content. -- Jim Mercer jim@reptiles.org +92 336 520-4504 "I'm Prime Minister of Canada, I live here and I'm going to take a leak." - Lester Pearson in 1967, during a meeting between himself and President Lyndon Johnson, whose Secret Service detail had taken over Pearson's cottage retreat. At one point, a Johnson guard asked Pearson, "Who are you and where are you going?"