Muy suspicioso?

[JS]

Perhaps in your inbox...
The wording on what appears to be a SSA e-mail is a bit suspect.
Jim

" It is imperative that you respond IMMEDIATELY to this email in order to begin receiving the SSA's monthly newsletter. You will NOT receive the newsletter until you respond by clicking the link below this message"

[[email protected]]

On Thursday, January 15, 2015 at 4:26:07 PM UTC-8, JS wrote:
> Perhaps in your inbox...
> The wording on what appears to be a SSA e-mail is a bit suspect.
> Jim
>
> " It is imperative that you respond IMMEDIATELY to this email in order to begin receiving the SSA's monthly newsletter. You will NOT receive the newsletter until you respond by clicking the link below this message"

I hope it's legit cause I clicked on it

[Martin Gregorie[_5_]]

On Thu, 15 Jan 2015 16:39:09 -0800, krudawg wrote:

>> " It is imperative that you respond IMMEDIATELY to this email in order
>> to begin receiving the SSA's monthly newsletter. You will NOT receive
>> the newsletter until you respond by clicking the link below this
>> message"
>
> I hope it's legit cause I clicked on it

Personally, when anybody tells me I MUST respond or click something, I
immediately smell a rat: usually a salesdroid or a spammer.

One way to see what you've got is to look at the e-mail headers. The LAST
'received' header is the first hop the mail made and in this case should
be the SSA, assuming they mailed it to their bulk-mail contracter. The
From: header should carry an SSA address and often the Message-ID header
will end in the sender's domain name, e.g ssa.org

If your mailreader won't let you inspect the headers in a e-mail,
consider getting a better one. Similarly, I NEVER run with preview on
because if the mail is carrying nasties its too late once you've seen the
preview. Think about it: to show you the preview, the reader must have
opened the mail and already tried to show you all the pictures etc, so if
any of them had nasties hidden in them, you've already been attacked.

Me, I never turn preview on and always look at the plain text by default
because the fancy HTML/web-styled version of the e-mail can have all
manner of unpleasant things hidden in it.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

[[email protected]]

On Thursday, January 15, 2015 at 7:26:07 PM UTC-5, JS wrote:
> Perhaps in your inbox...
> The wording on what appears to be a SSA e-mail is a bit suspect.
> Jim
>
> " It is imperative that you respond IMMEDIATELY to this email in order to begin receiving the SSA's monthly newsletter. You will NOT receive the newsletter until you respond by clicking the link below this message"

Given that it was from Kayla Owens, I didn't suspect anything to be concerned about.
UH

[[email protected]]

There is a message on the SSA Website indicating that it is legit.

Randy

[[email protected]]

On Thursday, January 15, 2015 at 7:26:07 PM UTC-5, JS wrote:
> Perhaps in your inbox...
> The wording on what appears to be a SSA e-mail is a bit suspect.
> Jim
>
> " It is imperative that you respond IMMEDIATELY to this email in order to begin receiving the SSA's monthly newsletter. You will NOT receive the newsletter until you respond by clicking the link below this message"

I thought it was suspicious too. Didn't click it. Anyone's email can be hacked, so the fact that it was from Kayla Owens didn't hold any sway.

[Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot)]

On Thursday, January 15, 2015 at 8:25:39 PM UTC-5, wrote:
> On Thursday, January 15, 2015 at 7:26:07 PM UTC-5, JS wrote:
> > Perhaps in your inbox...
> > The wording on what appears to be a SSA e-mail is a bit suspect.
> > Jim
> >
> > " It is imperative that you respond IMMEDIATELY to this email in order to begin receiving the SSA's monthly newsletter. You will NOT receive the newsletter until you respond by clicking the link below this message"
>
> Given that it was from Kayla Owens, I didn't suspect anything to be concerned about.
> UH

More importantly, from what I saw in the "from header", I acknowledged.

[MNLou]

I had the same concerns so I e-mailed Kayla directly.

The e-mail and link are legit and safe.

Lou

[Frank Whiteley]

On Thursday, January 15, 2015 at 5:26:07 PM UTC-7, JS wrote:
> Perhaps in your inbox...
> The wording on what appears to be a SSA e-mail is a bit suspect.
> Jim
>
> " It is imperative that you respond IMMEDIATELY to this email in order to begin receiving the SSA's monthly newsletter. You will NOT receive the newsletter until you respond by clicking the link below this message"

I had been in touch with the SSA office recently as I hadn't received the two December SSA e-News mailings. They did not end up in my filters, nor did I end up on the Constant Contact bounce list. Perhaps I was not the only one reporting this and the reason for the change to iContact. I suggest clicking the link if you'd like to continue receiving the SSA e-News.

Frank Whiteley

[[email protected]]

Would it not be less dramatic if the SSA merely added a check box for e-news on our member account page? Say, right under the field where our email ID is located? I also nuked the email w/o opening it.

[Frank Whiteley]

On Saturday, January 17, 2015 at 7:10:30 AM UTC-7, wrote:
> Would it not be less dramatic if the SSA merely added a check box for e-news on our member account page? Say, right under the field where our email ID is located? I also nuked the email w/o opening it.

http://www.ssa.org/GeneralNews?show=blog&id=3826

Unfortunately, that won't work, as you have to opt in with the service. Perhaps there will be a second posting for those who have not opted in, a link published in Soaring, or a request to contact the office if you wish inclusion (you can probably do that now anyway) so you'll get a second opt in request. As it's a paid member benefit, I doubt subscription links will be made available publicly.

A little prior warning would have helped of course.

Electronic newsletters are interesting critters from a webmaster or ISP perspective. Most ISP's have some kind of SPAM filtering in place which allows their users some to no control over white-listing or black-listing of e-mail senders. Some are very to overly aggressive at the server and ISP level, others, not so much. Plus ISP's may gray-list certain mail servers or IP addresses. It takes a fair amount of effort to determine the reason, clean up the problem, and request de-listing. On shared hosts this can affect several hundred domains.

Looking around, I found a survey comparing MailChimp against Constant Contact, with MailChimp apparently holding an edge among small businesses, but I see other reasons (cost) for wanting something like CC for an organization like the SSA. However, CC has some limiting issues which kind of stifle both content and creativity.

iContact reviews are pretty reasonable as is the cost for an organization like the SSA.

Self managed options included PHPList, but the user has to understand the nuances of throttling the sending queue to avoid poisoning the web host onto any number of black-lists. So if an aggressive ISP receives 50 e-mails in a short interval from the same e-mail, it might add that address to a SPAM blocker automatically. The long suffering mailman list-serv has no features to mollify this. Using subscription services gives access to some of the best features and protections for e-mail marketing. So there is enough effort involved that enterprising developers have been able to make a business case for providing quality services.

Frank Whiteley

[[email protected]]

Hi Frank, isn't checking a box on my SSA personal info page the same as 'opting in'?
~Barny

[Frank Whiteley]

On Sunday, January 18, 2015 at 3:14:50 PM UTC-7, wrote:
> Hi Frank, isn't checking a box on my SSA personal info page the same as 'opting in'?
> ~Barny

Not according to iContact, which is apparently replacing Contact Contact as the SSA's e-News distribution service.

Frank Whiteley

[Dan Marotta]

Can someone give me a rational explanation of the spreading use of the
lower case "i" prepended to so many words? ...Or is it the mystic
symbol of the rapidly growing cult of the apple? The new Moonies...

(Please, Oh Spring... Please come soon!)

On 1/18/2015 5:52 PM, Frank Whiteley wrote:
> On Sunday, January 18, 2015 at 3:14:50 PM UTC-7, wrote:
>> Hi Frank, isn't checking a box on my SSA personal info page the same as 'opting in'?
>> ~Barny
> Not according to iContact, which is apparently replacing Contact Contact as the SSA's e-News distribution service.
>
> Frank Whiteley

--
Dan Marotta

[Frank Whiteley]

On Monday, January 19, 2015 at 9:31:54 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
> Can someone give me a rational explanation of the spreading use of
> the lower case "i" prepended to so many words?* ...Or is it the
> mystic symbol of the rapidly growing cult of the apple?* The new
> Moonies...
>
>
>
> (Please, Oh Spring...* Please come soon!)
>
>
>
>
> On 1/18/2015 5:52 PM, Frank Whiteley
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, January 18, 2015 at 3:14:50 PM UTC-7, wrote:
>
>
> Hi Frank, isn't checking a box on my SSA personal info page the same as 'opting in'?
> ~Barny
>
>
> Not according to iContact, which is apparently replacing Contact Contact as the SSA's e-News distribution service.
>
> Frank Whiteley
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Dan Marotta

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2007/06/04/daily18.html

[Dan Marotta]

Thanks. So it's simply a "catchy" name.

I once knew someone named Jer, but when he wrote his name, it was
"Jer/". It wasn't pronounced, just written.

#D@n Yeah... That looks cool.


On 1/19/2015 1:21 PM, Frank Whiteley wrote:
> On Monday, January 19, 2015 at 9:31:54 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
>> Can someone give me a rational explanation of the spreading use of
>> the lower case "i" prepended to so many words? ...Or is it the
>> mystic symbol of the rapidly growing cult of the apple? The new
>> Moonies...
>>
>>
>>
>> (Please, Oh Spring... Please come soon!)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 1/18/2015 5:52 PM, Frank Whiteley
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, January 18, 2015 at 3:14:50 PM UTC-7, wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi Frank, isn't checking a box on my SSA personal info page the same as 'opting in'?
>> ~Barny
>>
>>
>> Not according to iContact, which is apparently replacing Contact Contact as the SSA's e-News distribution service.
>>
>> Frank Whiteley
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Dan Marotta
> http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2007/06/04/daily18.html

--
Dan Marotta

[Frank Whiteley]

On Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 8:36:31 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
> Thanks.* So it's simply a "catchy" name.
>
>
>
> I once knew someone named Jer, but when he wrote his name, it was
> "Jer/".* It wasn't pronounced, just written.
>
>
>
> #D@n* Yeah...* That looks cool.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 1/19/2015 1:21 PM, Frank Whiteley
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Monday, January 19, 2015 at 9:31:54 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
>
>
> Can someone give me a rational explanation of the spreading use of
> the lower case "i" prepended to so many words?* ...Or is it the
> mystic symbol of the rapidly growing cult of the apple?* The new
> Moonies...
>
>
>
> (Please, Oh Spring...* Please come soon!)
>
>
>
>
> On 1/18/2015 5:52 PM, Frank Whiteley
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, January 18, 2015 at 3:14:50 PM UTC-7, wrote:
>
>
> Hi Frank, isn't checking a box on my SSA personal info page the same as 'opting in'?
> ~Barny
>
>
> Not according to iContact, which is apparently replacing Contact Contact as the SSA's e-News distribution service.
>
> Frank Whiteley
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Dan Marotta
>
>
> http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2007/06/04/daily18.html
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Dan Marotta

Yes, Jer/ is still alive and kicking and flying. You're not on his list? He sends out a blast now and again.

Frank Whiteley

[Don Johnstone[_4_]]

At 22:14 18 January 2015, wrote:
>Hi Frank, isn't checking a box on my SSA personal info page the same as
>'opting in'?
>~Barny

Clicking a box on a form is no different to clicking anywhere else, unless
of course the programmer is a halfwit, then of course anything could
happen. There is no reason whatsoever why clicking a box should not
generate a link or any other programmable action. Amazing the lengths some
people go to to avoid a simple solution.

[Frank Whiteley]

On Friday, January 23, 2015 at 6:45:05 PM UTC-7, Don Johnstone wrote:
> At 22:14 18 January 2015, wrote:
> >Hi Frank, isn't checking a box on my SSA personal info page the same as
> >'opting in'?
> >~Barny
>
> Clicking a box on a form is no different to clicking anywhere else, unless
> of course the programmer is a halfwit, then of course anything could
> happen. There is no reason whatsoever why clicking a box should not
> generate a link or any other programmable action. Amazing the lengths some
> people go to to avoid a simple solution.

True, but AFAIK, iContact is a vendor that was contacted by the SSA office for a service. Looking at the iContact web site does indicate that use of the API will probably allow an opt in via the member locator option. I suppose no one at the SSA office bothered to discuss this with the SSA webmaster. If someone call the SSA office and suggested using the iContact API it would be an interesting conversation. I'm sure he could make it happen from a check box and perhaps that should be a future option is iContact performs as expected. Ever think about how many members could/would edit their personal profile if asked?

Like many solutions, simple, but not easy.

Opting out is so much more effective than opting in (from an organizational POV).

That's why USENET was so popular and mailing lists work, because they are so pushy. It's why social media works also.

Frank Whiteley

[[email protected]]

"Opting out is so much more effective than opting in" => unchecking a box.