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Re: "Moderated" Topics?

txpigeon@... (Duane) — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 17:38:14 -0800

On Tue, Dec 30, 2025 at 06:58 PM, Jen wrote:

What does a "moderated" topic mean?

It means that any replies will be moderated, so they may be posted or rejected by the moderator.

Duane

The Groups.io Help Center includes the Owners Manual and Members Manual.
They can be browsed online or downloaded as PDF files.

"Moderated" Topics?

spiderweb1@... (Jen) — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 16:58:23 -0800

Hi, and happy holidays!

Sometimes, I see "moderated" before a topic name. These moderated topics haven't been locked, but nothing has been added to them, either. What does a "moderated" topic mean? Thanks!

Re: Hackers Trying to Infiltrate our Listserv

Gspmom@... (Judy In Sunriver) — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 13:42:14 -0800

This has been happening to the group I moderate for several months now. I greatly appreciate the IP address being included in the notice of a member application! I think all of our sketchy applicants have come from Pakistan. I don’t bother with them anymore and just deny any from outside the U.S.
Our group is solely for residents, property owners and city officials if they wish to participate. As a result of all the scammers we now require applicants to submit 2 of the following: a photograph of their house in the neighborhood with the street number clear and legible; a photograph of a piece of mail addressed to them at the house in the neighborhood and with a USPS postmark; or provide the name of the local refuse provider and the day of the week for our pickup. Or they may simply provide a verifiable referral from a current member of our group. It’s unfortunate to have to go this route but we all try hard to protect our members.

Re: Hackers Trying to Infiltrate our Listserv

fan4pennsy@... (Morgan f Bilbo) — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 07:09:00 -0800

The rule for watching out for scammers, etc.

Look at the name and subject. If either one looks suspicious - Do No Open it. Just delete it. Don't be curious. Just be safe by deleting it.

Re: Hackers Trying to Infiltrate our Listserv

robert.oshel@... (Robert Oshel) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 17:09:03 -0800

Mark,

Several times we've had scammers use the real name and address of residents but using the scammer's email address. Presumably they got the names and addresses from state real estate records online. We caught them because the people whose names and addresses they used were already members.

I like the trash collection day idea to confirm residency. We've also contemplated requiring a photo taken out of their front window or door showing the door or window frame, the front yard, and the view across the street. They couldn't fake this from Google street view.

Bob Oshel, co-moderator, WPCA group

Re: Hackers Trying to Infiltrate our Listserv

marrie12@... (Sarah k Alawami) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 13:26:27 -0800

This might not be a good idea. What if the person joining your list is visually impaired or color blind. I like the suggestion however by asking that, if the person joining from your neighborhood has a visual disability and they get it wrong they might accidentally be flagged as a hacker when they are legitimate. I would suggest multiple methods such as IP addresses, location based on Ip then question, this way you have multiple ways of verification of identity.

Thanks and happy Monday.

Sarah Alawami | Salesforce Administrator | Accessibility Consultant | Educator

Follow me on Linked in.

On 12/29/2025 9:40 AM, Graham Tanner via groups.io wrote:

Re: Hackers Trying to Infiltrate our Listserv

trio@... (trio) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 12:00:39 -0800

On 2025-12-29 13:11, Richard Karash wrote:

Hey Fellow Owners & Moderators -
We have a couple of recent incidents, hackers trying to subscribe to
our listserv.
In one case, a new subscriber started pitching a very sketchy "vent
cleaning" service.

"Vents and Ducts" scam. It's a bit more complicated. They may actually find a local person in your area, but that person may or may not know anything about cleaning. The scam is that the local person pays the original scammer for leads for "work". So the original scammer takes most of the money, and gives the local person just some of the money sent (or maybe does NOT even give a local person anything!). THEY are also, often, victims of the scammer. What a mess.

Ours is a local community listserv;

I'm seeing this on all kinds of groups, including some in Esperanto, The International Language! No thank you to AI for translating everything so well that we can 't tell humans from bots!

In two cases, the attempt to
subscribe came from far away (Nigeria, then Pakistan). Thanks,
groups.io, for showing the origin of the subscribe request!

Yes! Groups.io has much better security features than most forums.

Our solution: We now ask for their street address in our community and
verify against the directory kept by our Home 0wners Association.

Unfortunately, we found that this didn't help much, because they can just look up addresses (usually on the periphery of our neighborhood). We switched to asking for: when they moved in?; and some activity that they like in the neighborhood. THAT DIDN'T WORK either. All of that is easily generated by "AI" with no sense of ethics. We finally went to Invite-Only Group. :( That means that a neighbor, who's already a member of the group, can ask us to invite their new neighbor. At least that way, you get a new member who is already vetted! But, obviously, the growth of your group slows way down.

Good luck everyone!

-=-=-
trio
Esperanto! What's that? https://esperanto.org/

Re: Hackers Trying to Infiltrate our Listserv

mark.wigfield@... (Mark Wigfield) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 11:40:07 -0800

*groups.io DIRECTORY, not directly

Re: Hackers Trying to Infiltrate our Listserv

mark.wigfield@... (Mark Wigfield) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 11:36:40 -0800

Our county has property records on line with ownership information. Since I always ask applicants for their name and address, those records are a starting point. If the applicant's name doesn't match the property records, I ask for a copy of a utility bill with name and address. Some fake applicants have simply used an address that's not theirs, or a street number that doesn't exist. So here's what my process looks like now:

1. The name of our list is no longer listed in the groups.io directly, making it harder to find. Our list is promoted word-of-mouth or by the neighborhood newsletter. Owners can make this change in settings--preferences-privacy--visibility

2. Look for suspect domain names in the applicant's profile, which can raise a red flag.

3. Require all applicants to provide name and address for approval

4. Check that info against official on-line property records

5. If no match, request other proof of residence (utility bill, etc.)

6. Moderate at least the first message of new members.

We also decided to ban the promotion of retail sales and services, unless they pertain to local school fundraisers, charities etc. That change probably lost us at least one new member who was probably legit, but should help protect the integrity of the list. That's important because one of the biggest uses of the list is neighbors asking other neighbors for recommendations about service contractors, etc.

Really makes me wonder what these scamsters are getting out of this process. Must be something since it seems so widespread.

Re: Hackers Trying to Infiltrate our Listserv

graham.tanner1@... (Graham Tanner) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 09:41:10 -0800

You could ask the newbies/potential hackers on what day the trash collection takes place, or even what colour is the trash collection truck? Chances are that the Google car *won't* have photographed it as they cruised around. Not a 100% solution, but will catch a lot of people.

On 29/12/2025 16:45, Robert Oshel via groups.io wrote:

This has been an ongoing problem for some time. I doubt asking for a street address will solve the problem. The hackers trying to join our neighborhood group gave real addresses when asked. Presumably they can easily get them from Google Maps, etc.

Bob in Maryland

On Mon, Dec 29, 2025 at 8:11 AM Richard Karash via groups.io <Richard=Karash.com@groups.io> wrote:

Hey Fellow Owners & Moderators -

We have a couple of recent incidents, hackers trying to subscribe to our listserv.

In one case, a new subscriber started pitching a very sketchy "vent cleaning" service.

Ours is a local community listserv; In two cases, the attempt to subscribe came from far away (Nigeria, then Pakistan). Thanks, groups.io, for showing the origin of the subscribe request!

Our solution: We now ask for their street address in our community and verify against the directory kept by our Home 0wners Association.

Anyone else seeing this?

_._,_._,_

--

<b>Graham Tanner</b>
West London

Virus-free.www.avg.com

Re: Hackers Trying to Infiltrate our Listserv

robert.oshel@... (Robert Oshel) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 08:46:20 -0800

This has been an ongoing problem for some time. I doubt asking for a street address will solve the problem. The hackers trying to join our neighborhood group gave real addresses when asked. Presumably they can easily get them from Google Maps, etc.

Bob in Maryland

Re: Hackers Trying to Infiltrate our Listserv

peggyrobin@... (Peggy Robin) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 07:56:01 -0800

I've been fending off fake membership applications for years. In quite a few cases, the applicant responded to my screening questions by giving a legitimate name and address in the neighborhood. They're using stolen or hacked email addresses, and when they give a real address, it can be hard to determine if they actually live there.

I used to ask a few free-form questions so that they could not simply copy and paste plausible answers from the internet. If they had to respond in sentences, then it would become clear that they weren't real residents of the neighborhood. But now I don't bother. If I see the applicant's IP address is Pakistan, I just delete without explanation.

Peggy Robin

List Owner, ClevelandPark (neighborhood group)

Re: Hackers Trying to Infiltrate our Listserv

karenivy@... (Karen Ivy) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 07:32:22 -0800

Oh, yes, we’ve seen them, also in a local community group. I ask for local cross streets and have even gotten a valid pair of streets, followed by an ad. I’ve set both our groups to “moderate” – they can’t send anything I can’t validate first.

Karen Ivy

secretary@...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Secretary, Greater Rockridge NCPC, beats 12Y and 13X

Re: phony requests

Richard@... (Richard Karash) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 05:18:23 -0800

Yes, we are seeing such requests to join.

We let one in, immediately their second message was the vent cleaning scam. Now seeing more requests, trying different modes (at Groups.io web site, by email to listserv owner, etc.)

Now have tightened our process.

Hackers Trying to Infiltrate our Listserv

Richard@... (Richard Karash) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 05:11:30 -0800

Hey Fellow Owners & Moderators -

We have a couple of recent incidents, hackers trying to subscribe to our listserv.

In one case, a new subscriber started pitching a very sketchy "vent cleaning" service.

Ours is a local community listserv; In two cases, the attempt to subscribe came from far away (Nigeria, then Pakistan). Thanks, groups.io, for showing the origin of the subscribe request!

Our solution: We now ask for their street address in our community and verify against the directory kept by our Home 0wners Association.

Anyone else seeing this?

Re: Backing up a group

larrydonline@... (Larry Davis) — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 19:58:54 -0800

Perfect. Thanks so much for the help.

Larry

Re: Backing up a group

christos@... (Christos Psarras) — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 18:59:24 -0800

On 2025-12-17 20:30, Larry Davis via groups.io wrote:

Is there any feature in IO groups that facilitates backing up a group's files, messages, and attachments?

Yes, you can export the group data.

Cheers,
Christos

Backing up a group

larrydonline@... (Larry Davis) — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 17:32:13 -0800

Is there any feature in IO groups that facilitates backing up a group's files, messages, and attachments? Or alternately, is there an external program that does a satisfactory job of making such a backup? Thanks for any help.

Larry

Re: Why is 'Reply to Sender" sometimes missing?

gailmwalker@... (Gail Walker) — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 15:44:52 -0800

Thank you, Bruce! I followed your instructions (though it took a moment to find "Separate Message Footers" since it was under "Message Policies")

That was pretty obscure!

Gail

Re: Why is 'Reply to Sender" sometimes missing?

bowman46118@... (Bruce) — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 14:39:26 -0800

On Mon, Dec 15, 2025 at 05:30 PM, Gail Walker wrote:

Sometimes messages that come through the group do not have a Reply to Sender or Reply to Group link and I've never been able to figure out why some posts have that and others don't.

Gail -- If someone sends a plain-text message to the group, those footer options will remain unavailable.

We would prefer that all messages have that option.

If you want a consistent, HTML footer:

Go to Admin>Preferences>Settings and expand the "Message Formatting" block.
Make sure the "Force HTML Emails" checkbox is selected.
Collapse Message Formatting and expand the "Message Policies" block.
DESelect the "Separate Message Footers" checkbox and click "Update Group."

Hope this helps,

Bruce