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Re: Inflammatory Remarks and viruses



> The rules for CarolinaBirds are clearly listed on line at
> (http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook/cbirds.html) and emailed to everyone who joins
> this list.  We should not need the listowner to remind us of this every
> couple of months.

Thanks for posting that, Toni.  Unfortunately most of the Duke web site is 
down at the moment, but the guidelines for Carolinabirds should be back up 
soon.  As I'm sure you all know, Carolinabirds is for messages directly 
related to wild birds and birding in the Carolinas -- we get enough messages 
as it is without bringing in politics, hunting, cats, etc.  I'm sure all of 
us are interested in other things, but if its focus is broadened, 
Carolinabirds will become a much less useful tool.

I've been out of town for the last couple of days and still haven't been 
able to catch up with all the 55 Carolinabirds messages since then, but 
inflammatory political messages obviously are most unwelcome on 
Carolinabirds.  In the meantime, I have taken the liberty of temporarily 
unsubscribing the main combatants and have set Carolinabirds to be a 
moderated list (meaning I have to manually approve all messages) until 
things quiet down.  Eric Harrold and Van Walbek are welcome to continue 
their discussion via private e-mail and are, of course, free to set up their 
own e-mail group in case other people want to participate in that type of 
discussion.  There are several newsgroups set up for this sort of thing in 
the alt.* hierarchy.  

Concerning viruses -- be on the lookout for the w32.klez virus, which is 
like other viruses that exploit the address book of Microsoft Outlook 
(better called Lookout), but this one is much craftier than most.  It uses a 
random address from the address book as the From: line, so the virus-
containing message looks like it's coming from a non- affected user instead 
of the infected computer.  I've been receiving about 10-20 of these messages 
a day!  These messages don't make it through to carolinabirds, but some of 
them forge the return address carolinabirds@duke.edu.  If you receive a 
message with the return address carolinabirds@duke.edu or carolinabirds-
owner@duke.edu it's pretty much guaranteed to contain the virus, since 
messages are never sent from those addresses (only to).  Be careful!  I'd 
recommend not opening attachments unless you're expecting them and not using 
MS Outlook.  There are plenty of other e-mail programs out there and almost 
all are better. More info on klez: 
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.klez.e@mm.html  

Back to birds!  Yesterday while doing field work in Jasper Co., SC  I was 
serenaded all day by Painted Buntings and saw some Mississippi Kites sail 
by.  The only migrant was a Broad-winged Hawk.

Thanks, everyone, for helping keep Carolinabirds on track!

Will Cook
carolinabirds-owner@duke.edu

-- 
Charles W. "Will" Cook                  w 919-660-7423
http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook            cwcook@duke.edu
Biology Dept., Duke Univ., Box 90340, Durham, NC 27708