XPost: soc.genealogy.britain, soc.genealogy.ireland, soc.geneaogy.misc
XPost: alt.genealogy

On 07/06/2021 09:18, Steve Hayes wrote:

Spammers have recently attacked several genealogy newsgroups,
intending to hijack them.

I've noticed a sharp incease in spam in soc.genealogy.ireland and soc.genealgy.misc

Spammers who hijack a newsgroup flood it with spam and drive out the
regular users who find that 99% of the messages are off-topic
spam.They have done this with soc.history, posting message welcoming
people to the local dating group for Mobile, Alabama, or some other
town in the USA. It's a bit counterproductive, though, because, having
driven all the regular users out, there's bno one left to read their
spam except other spammers.

But one of the lessons to learn is, use it or lose it.

If people don't use the newsgroups enough, it's like an empty house,
and the squatters move in.

Easily dealt with. Don't use mail versions of the groups. Don't use
Google Groups. Get a Usenet feed - your ISP might bundle this,
otherwise there are (or were last time I looked) free options and at
worst about a tenner a year - and a reader such as Thunderbird which
lets you ignore specific threads. These spammers seem to repeatedly
post to one or two threads. Ignore those threads and don't see any more
of the spam.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Mon, 7 Jun 2021 17:20:57 +0100, Ian Goddard
<ianng@austonley.org.uk> wrote:

On 07/06/2021 09:18, Steve Hayes wrote:

Spammers have recently attacked several genealogy newsgroups,
intending to hijack them.

I've noticed a sharp incease in spam in soc.genealogy.ireland and
soc.genealgy.misc

Spammers who hijack a newsgroup flood it with spam and drive out the
regular users who find that 99% of the messages are off-topic
spam.They have done this with soc.history, posting message welcoming
people to the local dating group for Mobile, Alabama, or some other
town in the USA. It's a bit counterproductive, though, because, having
driven all the regular users out, there's bno one left to read their
spam except other spammers.

But one of the lessons to learn is, use it or lose it.

If people don't use the newsgroups enough, it's like an empty house,
and the squatters move in.

Easily dealt with. Don't use mail versions of the groups. Don't use
Google Groups. Get a Usenet feed - your ISP might bundle this,
otherwise there are (or were last time I looked) free options and at
worst about a tenner a year - and a reader such as Thunderbird which
lets you ignore specific threads. These spammers seem to repeatedly
post to one or two threads. Ignore those threads and don't see any more
of the spam.

I use Agent as the news reader and use Eternal September as the Usenet
feed, both are free, though ES asks for donations. I hardly ever see
any spam, and even better I don't have to use Google Groups.

Cheers,
Henry

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)