Spam???

[John Ralls]

> On Aug 10, 2016, at 11:53 AM, David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Today I received a spam message that appeared to be from another member of
> this list, but it actually was not, and it did not come directly through
> this list.
> 
> Are there any specific recommendations about what to do besides the usual
> generic ones (delete immediately, do not reply and do not click on any
> links)?

David,

Unfortunately faking email addresses is all too easy, and since the list has a public archive (not to mention Nabble) harvesting email addresses to spoof and to target make it a tempting source.

Since much (some say most) spam is perpetrated via botnets it's not even useful to look at the trail of Received: headers except to determine that the email isn't coming from where it says it is.

Your list of "don'ts" missed an important one: Never open an attachment until you can be sure that it's from a trusted sender.

Others: Never use an obsolete operating system (the British papers reported yesterday that London's Metropolitan Police, aka "Scotland Yard" have 27,000--yeah, thousand--computers still running Windows XP) on a net-connected computer. Keep all of your software current, especially networking software like browsers, anti-virus and malware protection software, and of course the OS itself. Arrange for your email to be scanned for viruses and malware before it gets to your computer. Maintain and keep trained your spam filters.

If you can stand it, don't use Microsoft Windows. Not because it's any less secure than the competition, Win7 and later are
at least as good, but because Microsoft still has a dominant market share and is therefore a much bigger and more inviting
target.

Make frequent off-line backups and have a long rotation schedule so that if you do get infected or worse you can wipe your system and be sure of being able to restore your data with minimal loss.

Regards,
John Ralls