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Archiver > HANKS > 1997-05 > 0864560936


From: Glenn Gohr <>
Subject: MAISER Story
Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 06:48:56 -0500 (CDT)


For your interest, here is the article about the Maiser shutdown
that appeared in the ATLANTA CONSTITUTION newspaper on
Wednesday, May 14th:

E-mail mishap halts genealogy service
Researchers, buffs lose a valuable tool
by Art Kramer
STAFF WRITER

A Dunwoody retailer said he unwittingly started a chain of junk
e-mail that undermined one of the most popular exchanges of
genealogy information on the Intenet.

The shutdown is depriving tens of thousands of genealogy buffs
of their most effective online research tool, said John Rigdon,
national coordinator of The USGenWeb Project, a genealogy
clearinghouse on the World Wide Web.

The exchange, called Maiser, is a collection of mailing lists for
those trading research about their ancestors. Many genealogy
buffs subscribe to several lists, keyed to cities, towns, regions or
family surnames. It's not unusual for a genealogy hobbyist to sift
through several hundred list-sent messages daily, in search of a
clue that points to a distant ancestor.

Maiser, the largest collection of detailed lists with 40,000
subscribers, was forced off the Net last week after being used
as a fake return address to hide the identity of a junk e-mailer.

The disaster began when Sam Khuri, general manager of
Benchmart Print Supply, sent a $100 money order to the post
office box of a company that promised to advertise his service to
50,000 potential customers.

"If I knew what they were going to do, I never would have sent
the money," said Khuri, whose company recycles toner
cartridges for copiers.

The contractor, whose identity Khuri said he lost in a computer
crash of his own, e-mailed thousands of ads touting Khuri's
service last week. The junk e-mail was routed through Indiana
University computers, making it appear the ads had come from
the same computers that are home to the genealogy lists.

The tactic of forging return addresses, making an uninvolved
third party appear to be the sender of junk e-mail, is a common
one. Such practices prompted several online services, including
CompuServe and Prodigy, to get federal courts to help them bar
junk e-mailers from their services.

Larry Stephens, an Indiana University official who organized the
groups as a hobby over the past three years, was forced to shut
them down Friday rather than let them appear to be the source
of the junk e-mail. Stephens said he couldn't risk furthering the
perception that the junk e-mail was somehow connected to the
university.

"The loss of these mailing lists is devastating," Rigdon said.
"We've lost approximately one-third of our backbone for
genealogy research. About 20,000 daily users of the Internet
have been effectively left with no communication."

Stephens may reopen some of the regional lists this week if he
can find software that can't be commandeered by junk e-
mailers, but with the added security burden, he said it's unlikely
he will revive the surname lists.

Robert Turner, 52, a postal clerk in Huntsville, Ala., and a
descendant of traveling blacksmith David Turner, bemoaned the
demise of the surname lists.

Turner and his wife, Winona Turner, added 4,000 ancestors to
their family tree in the 30 years before they computerized their
search, but 20,000 more in just 16 months online.

Without the surname lists, said Turner, looking for his ancestors
"will be akin to driving down a dark country road with no
headlights."

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