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Subject: Yahoo Service Announcement - outbreak of computer viruses
The text of the message was as follows:
Dear Yahoo! Groups Members,
Due to a recent outbreak of computer viruses being transmitted via
email messages on the Internet, Yahoo! Groups is experiencing
delays in delivering group messages. Additionally, a recent virus
is generating emails which appear to come from Yahoo! Groups.
These messages state that "your email account has been temporarily
disabled", or that "our main mailing server will be temporarily
unavailable for the next two days" and more. These messages are
not official notifications from Yahoo! but rather are generated by
a virus on another person's computer.
To improve performance, and to help reduce the spread of viruses
to our users, Yahoo! Groups has had to temporarily reject some
messages. Based on an advisory posted by a leading anti-virus
company, Groups will temporarily reject messages with the
following subject lines:
test
hi
hello
Mail Delivery System
Mail Transaction Failed
Server Report
Status
Error
E-mail account disabling warning.
E-mail account security warning.
Email account utilization warning.
Important notify about your e-mail account.
Notify about using the e-mail account.
Notify about your e-mail account utilization.
Warning about your e-mail account.
If you have received a message rejection notice with a link to
this page, but did not attempt to post a message to your group,
your computer may have been infected. If you are confident that
your computer is not infected but your message was rejected,
please try posting a new message with a subject line different
than those listed above.
We can assure you that this is only a temporary measure and hope
to restore message delivery to normal as soon as possible.
... (etc, etc, etc) ...
Let's try and read the hidden meanings from this message.
- The messages appeared to come from Yahoo groups ...
Translation: Our legal Dept wants us to proclaim that Yahoo had nothing to do with this. And to assert with as many weasel words as possible that all such mail is external from the Yahoo services. - To improve performance, and to help reduce the spread of viruses ...
Translation: Despite the considerable number of weasel words in the previous point, and even though we still assert that none of this mail actually came from Yahoo Groups, we are banning the particular subject lines, but our legal dept would like to remind you that this does NOT mean that we admit that any of it does come from Yahoo Groups. - If you are confident that your computer is not infected ...
Translation: Security is the responsibility of individual computer users. If computer users want secure computers, it's up to them to choose the right software. Our legal dept wish to make it clear that Yahoo takes no responsibility for the choices they make. - We can assure you that this is only a temporary measure ...
Translation: Expect this to be a permanent measure ...
In such a cautiously worded document, it is unlikely to find the one recommendation that really would make a difference to Yahoo and their customers ... Stop using Microsoftware to connect directly to the Internet!
Meanwhile it seems as if there were 75 visitors to this blog last month. So far this month there have been 44 visitors, so the hits are slowly building ...