Becky, you have probably already seen this article in your local newspaper,
but just in case, I am sending it on to you. It appeared in The Atlanta
Journal Constitution today, May 13. I suppose it ran here because the
"culprit" was from a local city (Dunwoody, Ga. near an Atlanta suburb). Is
there a way you can email it to Larry Stephens?? He might be interested in
seeing it after all the headaches the jerk has caused him!
Regards, Glenna Kinard
PS thanks for the email correction.
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E-MAIL MISHAP HALTS GENEALOGY SERVICE
Researchers, buffs lose a valuable tool
By Art Kramar
STAFF WRITER
A Dunwoody retailer said he unwittingly started a chain of junk Email that
undermined one of the most popular exchanges of genealogy information on the
Internet.
The shutdown is depriving tens of thousands of genealogy buffs of their
most effective online research tool, said John Rigdon, national coordinator
of The USGenWeb Project, a genealogy clearinghouse on the World Wide Web.
The exchange, called Maiser, is a collection of mailing lists for those
trading research about their ancestors. Many genealogy buffs subscribe to
several lists, keyed to cities, towns, regions or family surnames. It's not
unusual for a genealogy hobbyist to sift through several hundred list-sent
messages daily, in search of a clue that points to a distant ancestor.
Maiser, the largest collection of detailed lists with 40,000 subscribers,
was forced off the Net last week after being used as a fake return address to
hide the identity of a junk e-mailer.
The disaster began when Sam Khuri, general manager of Benchmark Print
Supply, sent a $100 money order to the post office box of a company that
promised to advertise his service to 50,000 potential customers.
"If I knew what they were going to do, I never would have sent the money,"
said Khuri, whose company recycles toner cartridges for copiers.
The contractor, whose identity Khuri said he lost in a computer crash of
his own, e-mailed thousands of ads touting Khuri's service last week. The
junk e-mail was routed through Indiana University computers, making it appear
the ads bad come from the same computers that are home to the genealogy
lists.
The tactic of forging return addresses, making an uninvolved third party
appear to be the sender of junk e-mail, is a common one. Such practices
prompted several online services, including CompuServe and Prodigy, to get
federal courts to help them bar junk e-mailers from their services.
Larry Stephens, an Indiana University official who organized the groups as
a hobby over the past three years, was forced to shut them down Friday rather
than let them appear to be the source of the junk e-mail.
Stephens said he couldn't risk furthering the perception that the junk
e-mail was somehow connected to the university.
"The loss of these mailing lists is devastating," Rigdon said. "We've lost
approximately one third of our backbone for genealogy research. About 20,000
daily users of the Internet have been effectively left with no
communication."
Stephens may reopen some of the regional lists this week if he can find
software that can't be commandeered by junk e-mailers, but with the added
security burden, he said it's unlikely he will revive the surname lists.
Robert Turner, 52, a postal clerk in Huntsville, Ala., and a descendant of
traveling blacksmith David Turner, bemoaned the demise of the surname lists.
Turner and his wife, Winona Turner, added 4,000 ancestors to their family
tree in the 30 years before they computerized their search, but 20,000 more
in just 16 months online.
Without the surname lists, said Turner, looking for his ancestors "will be
akin to driving down a dark country road with no head-lights."
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