http://www.panix.com/~lan/crusader/

The above URL will get you to a Web site that has lots of information
about the recent hate mail that has propogated on the net. People who
must pay per message or for disk space get hit twice, first with the
unwanted message then with the followup discussion. I am posting the
contents of Q and A page that is on the web site in hopes it will answer
some questions. Our listserv software can and does have spam detector
capabilities, we can't stop all unwanted postings.

> Tracking the "Crusader Spammer"
>
> Q: What's going on?
>
> A: Someone has been sending a long and extremely racist monologue to
> thousands of email address via the machines, cdsxb6.u-strasbg.fr,
> mc3.hq.eso.org and asso.nis.garr.it which are in France, Germany and
> Italy respectively. Needless to say this has upset a lot of people,
> and the search is on for the culprits.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Q: What's being done to stop them?
>
> A: The admins of the French and German sites have regained control
> of their machines. The Italian admins have not done so yet. I am in
> the process of contacting their upstream admins to help resolve the
> situation. Also, a number of government agencies, including the FBI
> are said to be investigating this incident.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Q: What can I do to prevent this?
>
> A: Not much, I'm afraid. Because they keep bouncing from site to
> site, and forging their return address, there really is no way to
> filter them out. Unfortunately, there is no "NoCeM' for email. (see
> below for link). Please don't send nasty email to your provider
> asking why they didn't stop this-- the only way they could prevent
> such abuse would be to turn off your email.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Q: Are they out to get me?
>
> A: As far as I can see this is a mass mailing to tens of thousands
> of users -- a number of people are concerned they were specifically
> targeting for this message, however the evidence would seem to show
> this is not the case.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Q: How did they get my email address?
>
> A: This is still unclear, however it would seem that they collected
> userids from Usenet posts for a few months. They emailed an account
> of mine that had only posted one time in early August, to one
> newsgroup (misc.test.). Others have suggested they also scanned IRC
> for usernames.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Some references to helpful items...
>
> * Tracking Hate Groups on the Net (The Nizkor Project)
> * Computer Security Sites (from Yahoo)
> * NoCeM (prevent "junk" news postings).
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> By: [log in to unmask]