Fwd: Diether is a Hacker

[Bryan Sanctuary]

I reply only in deference to Alexandre: I applaud you telling us to discipline ourselves.  You do not want to monitor this childish behaviour.  

Everyone, please respect Alexandre

Bryan

On Tue, Jan 27, 2026 at 3:25 PM anton vrba <anto...@gmail.com> wrote:

And I put Alexandre back on the distribution, because it is important for him and the group.

"Fred is not on the google group, so he is simply add it to recipients.  He sends an email from himself to google groups and others."

Exactly Bryan, that is spamming, have a look in google groups and you see he is posting there too exploiting a loophole, (screen shot below) and all group members are receiving Fred's nonsense --- many have left because of that.  The only effective way to stop all future nonsense from him is that Alexandre  puts Fred's email into the banned list, and closes threads for further replies that Fred exploits.

Surely I do not need to repeat myself in saying it is Alexandre's duty to close exploited loopholes, it is a five minute job for him

regards

Anton

------ Original Message ------

From "Bryan Sanctuary" <bryancs...@gmail.com>

To "anton vrba" <anto...@gmail.com>

Cc "Richard Gill" <gill...@gmail.com>; "Mark Hadley" <sunshine...@googlemail.com>

Date 1/27/2026 8:00:37 PM

Subject Re: Diether is a Hacker

Anton

I took off Alexandre from the reply. I did not add the google group to the recipients.  He clearly does not want to discipline the group, and if you continue to bug him, he has the power to shut it down.

Fred is not on the google group, so he is simply add it to recipients.  He sends an email from himself to google groups and others. 

Better, in my view, is to ignore him.  

Bryan

On Tue, Jan 27, 2026 at 2:40 PM anton vrba <anto...@gmail.com> wrote:

But Bryan, go to your https://groups.google.com/g/Bell_quantum_foundations/members and tell me if you can find Fred's email.  

Please give feedback if Fred appears as a member on your system, he is invisible on mine, in other words not a fellow member.

If you can't we are sure that we are engaging with a phantom-member, a psycho who is out to spam and break this group up.  

You are welcome to engage with Fred privately, but not as a Cc: on a group email. 

I am not interested in any of Fred'd comment because he exploits a vulnerability in google groups. 

Alexandre's duty as group owner is that he protects us from spam, and I showed such vulnerabilities exist for spamming, 

and what he needs to do if these vulnerabilities are exploited.  

Alexandre is not censoring anyone by ensuring group members only receive emails from fellow group members.

Regards

Anton

------ Original Message ------

From "Bryan Sanctuary" <bryancs...@gmail.com>

To "anton vrba" <anto...@gmail.com>

Cc "Alexandre de Castro" <alx...@gmail.com>; "Richard Gill" <gill...@gmail.com>; "Mark Hadley" <sunshine...@googlemail.com>

Date 1/27/2026 7:22:03 PM

Subject Re: Diether is a Hacker

Dear all, and Alexanre,

I suggest Alexandre simply ignores all these interruptions to his peace.  In the forum, we can simply ignore Diether, but others continue to engage with him, giving him reason to continue.

I agree with you that we must/can discipline this group, without imposing on you.

Regards

Bryan S

On Tue, Jan 27, 2026 at 1:46 PM anton vrba <anto...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Alexandre,

I think Fred is a hacker and he is using some or other loophole in Google groups. By his own admission he wrote

" I'm not a member of this group but I can still report your message to Google Groups as abuse."
and his email is not visible on the group email list.  I did some research and below what Google's Gemini reported.

We should all refrain from having Fred on the Cc: or To: email lists when we post something.

Regards

Anton

3. Email Spoofing via Legacy Threads

Scammers and former members can exploit the way Google Groups identifies "conversations."  

• The Issue:  If a sender uses the exact  "References"  or  "In-Reply-To"  headers from an existing email thread, Google Groups may associate that email with the existing conversation even if the sender is no longer a member.
• Vulnerability:  Security researchers have demonstrated that if a group's spam filters are not strict, an external sender can "inject" a message into a private group thread just by knowing the group's email and the thread ID.  

To stop a former member from exploiting old threads in a 2026 Google Groups environment, the owner should combine banning with thread-level restrictions. Banning is the most direct solution for blocking specific individuals, while "locking" prevents further replies to existing conversations.  

1. Ban the Former Member  

Adding Fred to the banned list is the most effective way to prevent him from posting, even if he still has thread IDs or email headers.  

• How to Ban:  Sign in to  Google Groups, select the group, click  Members, check the box next to Fred's name (if he reappears) or manually add his email to the  Banned users  list under the members section.
• Effect:  Banned users cannot post new messages or reply to existing threads, even if they were once members.  

2. Lock the Targeted Conversation

If Fred is currently spamming a specific thread, the owner should "Lock" it immediately.

• How to Lock:  Open the specific conversation in the Google Groups interface. Click  Lock conversation  (usually found in the top right or under "More options").
• Effect:  This prevents  everyone  from replying to that specific thread while keeping the history visible to current members.  

3. Bulk Closing Previous Threads

There is  no single button  to lock every thread in a group's history at once, but the owner can perform a bulk action for all threads on a single page.  

• Step-by-Step Bulk Lock:
  1. Go to the group's conversation list.
  2. Check the "Select all" box at the top of the list (this typically selects the 30–50 conversations visible on that page).
  3. Click the  Lock conversation  icon in the upper right toolbar.
  4. Repeat this for each page of the conversation history.  

Summary Checklist for the Owner

• Set Posting Permissions:  Ensure "Who can post" is strictly set to  "Group members"  under  Group settings > General.
• Enable Spam Moderation:  Set  Posting policies > Spam message handling  to  "Moderate and notify content moderators"  to catch spoofed emails before they reach the group.
• Check for Nested Groups:  Verify if Fred is a member of another group that has been added as a member to this group.