FW: Message to Neutron Scattering Mailing List

[Worlton, Thomas]

-----Original Message-----
From: Osborn, Ray 
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 11:36 AM

As many of you will have guessed, the last message, with the subject line
"new photos from my party!" contained a virus disguised as a web site URL.
Please do not open the attachment, especially if you use a Windows machine,
or it will be propagated to other people in your address book.

This is the latest in a series of problems the Neutron Scattering Mailing
List has incurred over the past few weeks, and it managed to bypass a number
of security features we had installed.  We know that many of you are
irritated by receiving unwanted messages and we apologize for the
inconvenience they have caused.

We are taking the following course of action to reduce future problems:

1) We are actively testing new mailing list software.  The problems have
been difficult to solve because we have been using an outdated system for
message delivery.  It worked well for many years, but with nearly 1000
subscribers, and the prevalence of mail viruses, we have been planning to
migrate to a newer system for some time.

2) We have stopped all postings to the Neutron Scattering Mailing List until
we have completed testing of the new list software.  If there is a
particularly urgent message, please contact Tom Worlton <TGWorlton at anl.gov>
and he will post it for you.

3) When we have completed the tests, we will transfer the existing
subscribers to the new list, and post a new welcome message explaining any
changes to the subscription and posting procedures.

4) The new list will be fully moderated, i.e. no message will be posted to
the list without the approval of one of the list managers.

5) We will put clear subscription/unsubscription instructions on each
posting.

6) Sending attachments to nearly 1000 subscribers requires a lot of
bandwidth, so they will only be approved if they are not too large, they
serve a clear purpose, and they are cleared by virus checkers.  If you wish
to make a larger file available to the list, we request that you include a
link to where the file can be downloaded.

We hope that these measures will prevent future inconvenience to you.  The
Neutron Scattering Mailing List is, I believe, a valuable resource for the
whole neutron scattering community, and we intend to stop it being abused.
We appreciate your patience while we resolve the remaining problems.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please send them directly to me
<ROsborn at anl.gov> or Tom Worlton <TGWorlton at anl.gov>.

With regards,
Ray Osborn 
-- 
Dr Ray Osborn                Tel: +1 (630) 252-9011
Materials Science Division   Fax: +1 (630) 252-7777
Argonne National Laboratory  E-mail: ROsborn at anl.gov
Argonne, IL 60439-4845

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