Posted by LeeHunter on November 7, 2011 at 4:26pm
Would the person who is sending spam messages to government employees promoting Drupal (pretending that it's coming from phoney government email addresses) please knock it off?
It's totally having the reverse effect in that it makes the community look both sneaky and stupid and it's interfering with the legitimate communications effort (which is progressing well enough without this garbage).
If you're going to send spam at least use your own name and address.
Thank you for your co-operation.
Comments
Trace it
Do you have access to any of the raw e-mails (full headers)? If so, we can trace it. If it doesn't point directly to the source, say a Gmail account, we can get Google to cancel the account. Feel free to contact me off-group if you've got the data & want help with it.
Maybe That's the Plan
I got a few of those months ago although they were much more hostile than what you are describing. I suspect mine came from a disgruntled government employee. If the communication is promoting the GCPedia pageon Drupal (which I don't believe is a useful resource) rather than say the community initiatives:
http://tbs-sct.ircan-rican.gc.ca/projects/gcwwwdrupal
https://github.com/sylus/Government-of-Canada-Drupal/
Then I suspect I know who's behind this. Depending on how it's done, it might be possible to engage with the Drupal webmasters:
http://drupal.org/project/webmasters
Thanks for raising this though!
--
OpenConcept | Twitter @mgifford
Unfortunately the headers
Unfortunately the headers aren't useful. What's happening is that someone is using third party websites that don't require any authentication. For example, one time they used the Montreal Gazette's "email this story to your friends" feature which allows you to put in a bunch of email addresses (and your own totally fake email address) plus a message.
Still possible
That's more annoying to track down, but if reported, the site's abuse handlers can track it down from web server logs, etc.. Or, if this stuff is actually illegal, the cops can do all of the work.
That's Dedication!
Although that's not really all that difficult to do, it really does display a level of dedication that's an indication of a pretty disturbed person who isn't likely to listen to a reasonable request.
Good to start collecting & sharing notes like this though so that this person can be identified before they cause more damage.
--
OpenConcept | Twitter @mgifford
Problem solved
I just heard directly (but anonymously) from the person responsible and the situation has been resolved amicably.
Just to clarify why I was so upset. Where I work there has already been lots of discussion, sometimes quite passionate, about Drupal (and various alternatives). Since I've become known as a 'Drupal guy', every time these messages come through, everyone forwards it to me and some people were assuming that I was behind it. It was getting embarrassing and annoying.
Anyway, looks like we're all good now.
Glad to hear it's resolved.
Hey Lee,
This post certainly peaked my attention... and glad to see it's been resolved, as I (and many others) have put lots of time, energy and money into professionally advocating Drupal and Alfresco.
Cheers,
R
Robin Galipeau - Managing Partner
http://www.openplus.ca
Alfresco Gold Partner