[fitsbits] Virus scanners in place, <fitsbits> unmoderated again

[Don Wells]

Dear <fitsbits> subscribers, (and sci.astro.fits readers)

On 2002-08-01, about 4.5 months ago, an instance of a 'Klez' virus,
probably executing on a machine in South Africa, sent a piece of
Klez-infected email to <fitsbits> with <dwells at nrao.edu> as the From
line, and <fitsbits> distributed the infected email to its
subscribers.  My response to that incident was to set the Mailman
option which presents all traffic to me for approval (i.e., full
moderation).

NRAO began installing virus scanners on some of its email gateways in
October.  The gateways were upgraded one by one; the process is now
complete, and all email travelling both into and out of NRAO by all
paths is now scanned.

I now assume that it is no longer possible for <fitsbits> to broadcast
a virus, and so I have cleared the moderation option.  The mail
scaners also check for 'spam'; the filters are not perfect, but I
expect that most spam sent to <fitsbits> will be trapped.

It is still true that postings to <fitsbits> from non-subscribers will
be presented to me for approval, and that only subscribers can see the
list of subscribers.

Regards,
Don Wells ['owner' of <fitsbits at nrao.edu>]
-- 
  Donald C. Wells    Scientist - GBT-PTCS Project     dwells at nrao.edu
                    http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~dwells
  National Radio Astronomy Observatory                +1-434-296-0277
  520 Edgemont Road,   Charlottesville, Virginia       22903-2475 USA
       (DCW is often in Green Bank, West Virginia, at +1-304-456-2146)