WHY THE CHANGE

When we first started the email reflectors to support communications between the membership of NCVA, the "standard" connection to the internet was via a dial‑up modem. As high speed connections have become more common, many of the restrictions and considerations on configurations have become outmoded.

Over the years, we have heard the membership complain about having to post in plaintext only, not being allowed to post pictures or attachment files to their emails, and about editorial subject restrictions.

Each of those constraints had a valid reason ‑ either technical, legal, or "social."

For example, HTML‑coded email has the potential to embed hidden commands that could result in malicious software being installed on your personal computer or executed to take you to a malware‑laden site without your knowledge. Attachments have long been a haven for virus‑makers to deliver their programs. As the malware "industry" has evolved, their delivery methodologies and attack vectors have changed and while they still have the ability to use these techniques, they have decided that other methods are more lucrative and effective to achieve their purposes.

Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other mass email and web‑presence providers have advanced their detection and elimination programs to the point that your exposure to malware is minimized (but not eliminated ‑ thus the continued need for you to have a locally installed and operational anti‑virus and anti‑spam program running to protect yourself).

As more and more ISP's (large and small) turn to anti‑spam filters to control this problem, many of them are using "dumb" brute‑force filters or filters with little sophistication and very little latitude to make exceptions to general rules. For example, once AOL starts blocking email from one NCVA reflector subscriber to their users (and the NCVA reflector has somewhere between 350‑400 AOL users), it quickly turns into a situation where a larger number of users are being blocked, and finally the IP address of the list server is simply blocked for ALL email to their users as a potential spammer. Getting yourself taken off the blacklist programs is usually a very difficult task (for good reason), but when you get more than one domain blocking, it doesn't take long before you're finding yourself blacklisted by a large segment of your user population ‑ and that is NOT good for communications. Besides, it requires a lot of time and effort by the listmaster to try to contact the appropriate people at these places to get the reflector put back on good terms.

Yahoo!Groups has been around a long time, and because of the precautions Yahoo itself takes to protect their users, in addition to the new "features" and capabilities that are offered, Rob Rude (webmaster) and Bill Hickey (listmaster) decided to TRY the system. At first, we built a clone of the FRUPAC reflector on the Yahoo!Groups, and worked to examine all the features and configuration options that were made available. As the testing progressed, we determined that Yahoo!Groups offered us not only the reliability we need, but the capability that you ‑ the membership ‑ have long been requesting.

The problem is, we ‑ as administrators ‑ are restricted in what we can do to add you to the group (or just subscribe you to the email distribution list) ... basically ... YOU have to take it upon yourself to start the process and see it through to a successful completion. Rob and Bill are available to HELP guide you through the process if necessary, but remember ‑ YOU hold the keys.

Last Modified: Tuesday, 09-Jun-2009 18:52:20 EDT