Hi everyone,
Yesterday, there were two posts to the list caused by a virus in the
e-mail of a subscriber.  They are in the archives, had only a period
or a comma in the subject line, and I won't bother copying them here.
The listmothers get daily error reports, automatically generated by
the listserv, showing all the subscriber addresses who have bounced
back messages from Lactnet in the previous 24 hours.  Usually there
are half a dozen addresses being monitored due to bounce-back.  Today
there are over 360, and it seems to include all of our subscribers who
have @aol.com addresses.
I checked to see what reason aol.com gave for refusing the Lactnet
e-mails, and it was this, which you can check yourself at
http://postmaster.aol.com/Postmaster.Errors.php#421hvub2

"421 HVU:B2
There is at least one URL or domain in your e-mail that is generating
substantial complaints from AOL members. Resolution will require
opening a support request. "

Probably, as long as we don't get any more virus-generated posts in
the next day or so, this will blow over by itself.  But if not, and
you are an aol.com subscriber, you may need to open a support request
with aol.com.  You can do so at the URL above.  We can't do it, it is
a service for people with those e-mail addresses.

There are a lot of e-mail servers who seem to filter for that kind of
message, so every time one gets through, we get a flurry of error
messages.  But I also think the subject line of Ellen's post about the
video the other day may have tripped some spam filters.  Won't repeat
the text here, to avoid that pitfall if my suspicion is correct - I
did notice an increase in error messages from qmail, embarqmail,
bresnan.net  and wideopenwest that day, which were the ones cropping
up as reacting to possible spam content some weeks back.

Finally, this is not meant as a criticism of the subscriber whose
e-mail sent out the virus messages.  Happens to everyone at some
point!

Rachel Myr
for the listmothers

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