STEVE: Dryer Vent Cleaning – Team Up for a Discount!

[Angela Wade]

Hi everyone! 

I’m putting together a group dryer vent cleaning for our neighborhood with a reliable professional. If we have at least two or more households join, we’ll receive a special group discount.

The date will be flexible so it works for everyone. If you’d like to participate, please send me your name, phone number, and address so I can coordinate.

It’s a great way to save money and keep our homes safe—hope you’ll join in!

[Nha Toi]

On this comment, "save money and keep our homes safe "    

CAN WE PLEASE -  Have a safer email list for paid members only.  If you give your name, phone, address to "Angela" above, your MONEY , HOMES and your info won't be safe from these heartless phishing scammers.

Before, I thought this ACBA group was for paid, actual, honest ACBA members.  Now I realize any Tom, Harry, or Angela can join the group.  I'm speaking for myself here, and please chimed in if you agree or not.  I didn't join this Group in the beginning because I didn't trust the Group structure.  But then I needed to post something, so here I am.  

After seeing how UNSAFE this Group Chat is, I am now debating if I should unsubcribed myself from it.  So I am asking the powers that be, CAN WE PLEASE -  Have a safer email list for paid members only                                                         

[J R]

The ACBA webb site it not any weaker or safer than any other out there , the cloud from apple got hacked , there is a new one from wells fago , they have the exact same letterhead as wells fargo , no one in the world is safe from hackers these days .

 oh yes one of my relative , no bcell phone , wifi , blue tooth and the like their TV has 3 channels 

Simply ignore all these message or phone call , i used to forward rhem to the IRS and FBI tdlling them to insist the receptionist was a pain . 

      I seldom get any of them .

You do not have to be polite they are not , you talk to them reply to email they know your phone or email is alive and will be resold .

      As fas as making the site safer , fine with me you pay the bill , because the day I recieve a bill for it i will stop being a member ,

      Sincerely joel 

no one call my land line anymore ! 

On Sep 14, 2025, at 8:51 AM, Nha Toi <2nha...@gmail.com> wrote:

On this comment, "save money and keep our homes safe "    

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Alameda County Beekeepers Association" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to the-alameda-county-beekeep...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/9e21f583-2aba-4727-bd49-3286e9178253n%40googlegroups.com.

[Robert L Mathews]

Thanks for the feedback Gina, we're working on transitioning to something more secure than Google Groups in the future.

On Sep 14, 2025, at 8:51 AM, Nha Toi <2nha...@gmail.com> wrote:

So I am asking the powers that be, CAN WE PLEASE -  Have a safer email list for paid members only   

-- 

Robert L Mathews

[Gerald Przybylski]

List security is one thing. 
The [ACBA BeeTalk]  (google) group can be found by searching google for it, 
then subscribing is easy, as described in the newsletter. 
The google filtering has  been mostly OK at keeping spam out of the list.  (occasionally too zealous) 
Moving our club's general email-group to another platform where we have more control 
will shed some of the problems.  The transition week will be rocky and will probably loose a few
subscribers along the way.  
We can put info about it in the newsletter, but in a good month 20 or 30% of subscribers don't open it. 
(in fact, if you're a member and aren't getting the newsletter in your in-box, send an email to 
newsl...@alamedabees.org, and we'll try to figure out together what the cause is.)

There's another  SPAM  pathway that any group mail system can't protect.
It's those emails that appear to be from a friend endorsing something,  but really spam from a 
computer that "spoofed" (falsified) the sender's email address. 
It's the case where someone Cracks you computer or your email account, and sucks out all your contacts,
then spams that contact list directly. 
So
• Keep your operating system up-to-date.  Historically Windows is the most attacked, then mac, then linux. 
• Keep your Email Client up-to-date, especially downloaded apps. Thunderbird, Eudora, etc 
• Keep you www Browser up-to-date.  Chrome, Firefox, Safari, whatever microsoft uses these days...
• Attachments to emails can be malicious - don't be tempted to open attachments you weren't expecting. 
The "social-engineering" construction can suck you right in if you're not eternally vigilant. 

The spam, virus, malware world keeps evolving.  The managers of those projects constantly 
improve their software security to keep up.  
The weak link is the USER - that's you and me - who either through laziness or inattention
or overwork, or lack of computer savvy, fail to keep our products at the latest revision level. 

cheers

[gmau...@earthlink.net]

Rob... I think moving to another platform is a bit of an over reaction.  Wouldn't it be simpler to have members that detect a post as junk... simply note it to the group.  Who ever is doing the admin could delete the post and delete the poster from the group.  If it is of interest... Phil Stob has a way to control the Fremont Beeks membership.  I believe he manually enters members.

[Mark Burlingame]

Ok everyone, first of all as the moderator of this list I stop almost one of these spam duct cleaning posts per day, some days there are many.  No one can stop all of it, it is impossible.  There is no "safe space".  One of the few bad emails accounts that got through was due to the fact that their first post was about moving a hive.  So I thought they were legit bee people.  That account is now banned.  ALL FIRST TIME POSTERS ARE MODERATED.  That means that I see them before they are allowed to go out to the list.  This is also why some people post multiple times if I am not able to approve their post quickly.  If Robert can find a better option than google groups that would be awesome, but often those "solutions" cost money, require more maintenance and still are susceptible in my opinion.  I am not in any way and expert or even deeply knowledgeable about the options available. And remember, if someone's legitimate email gets hacked and they are a list member, whatever the hacker wants to send to the list is going to go out.  Those generally have to be banned after the fact.  Anyway, I moderate the list even though I currently have no bees because I believe that a local easily available forum like this is essential to every beekeeper.  Mark

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Alameda County Beekeepers Association" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to the-alameda-county-beekeep...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/c86cc194-0757-4991-8e35-bcdf3d546f70n%40googlegroups.com.

[Jim Veitch]

I'd like to thank Mark for acting as moderator.  Personally, I think he does a great job and it is very rare to see spam on this group.  In the past we have had occasional flame wars and he's done a great job of stamping them out as well.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/CAJP5dN0A4n%2BaYFMmvf3bf9SKjejuMCgZ%3DOE%3DBtvuMkLCoZ9anQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Catherine Edwards]

I also would like to thank Mark for his behind the scenes work on behalf of the club. Some kind of acknowledgement could happen at least once a year of those jobs/people who work in an invisible capacity to support the very smooth running of acba so that newcomers are aware of their efforts. I also prefer we don't try to change to another platform for the list.

Catherine Edwards

(510)421-7206

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/CAC5BU3Mugc%3DVS_GJmNO6qVx%2BQM35xJvzuVOYxv19WK5WB5PofA%40mail.gmail.com.

[MLuskin]

I don’t see a problem. 

Merry Luskin. 

On Sep 18, 2025, at 8:46 AM, Catherine Edwards <catherine...@gmail.com> wrote:



To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/CANSV-ErrZ_ZB1Hg-K03n1xpnS5bvG8SSnnr6VxQKbji3VcOSzQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[real...@aol.com]

Thank you Mark!

Hackers are here to stay 

Anyone with an Email address or phone number is a potential victim 

we as user simply have to adapt and not open any "stupid" link 

If they can hack banks , hospital various Gouvernement agency and all devices including that supposed to be bullet proof "Apple" there is little the Association can do to fully protect itself , 

but everyone constant vigilance if you see duct cleaning in a beehive club it is a sign to stay away,

it is basic security , it take a village , let start here instead of throwing rock months after the fact.

 I like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thanks all the volunteer and the board working to make to Assocation running and getting some top notch lecturer .

Another fact most fail to understand is the amount of work required to do so , I recall a few years ago of some accusing the board of financial malpractice for a few dollars , an independent audit was done and everything was clear {never heard any apologies from the fingers pointers} 

At that time my Wife was the treasurer of a large non profit national organization ,talk about taking the work home it was a nightmare and put Her on notice to choose them or our Family , 

what most fail to understand their name is tagged along with the "Club" anything wrong at the association , the Gov will be the first people they visit. 

For some strange reason the google world, I cannot post on the site directedly, user error ?  

my apologies for my poor English . 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/CAJP5dN0A4n%2BaYFMmvf3bf9SKjejuMCgZ%3DOE%3DBtvuMkLCoZ9anQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[real...@aol.com]

To all the people who like to throw rock , can you please tell us how many junk mail make it pass your provider filter ? 

                                                                     Oops ! 

in so many years the duct vent cleaner is the only one I am aware off , Thank Mark for a fantastic job!

It did happen because the sender was at one time a member. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/CAC5BU3Mugc%3DVS_GJmNO6qVx%2BQM35xJvzuVOYxv19WK5WB5PofA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Robert L Mathews]

On Sep 18, 2025, at 1:26 AM, gmau...@earthlink.net <gmau...@earthlink.net> wrote:

Rob... I think moving to another platform is a bit of an over reaction.  Wouldn't it be simpler to have members that detect a post as junk... simply note it to the group.  Who ever is doing the admin could delete the post and delete the poster from the group.

What's perhaps not obvious to others is that we don't have full control of the Google Group.

It was set up by a different club member around 13 years ago who was the "owner" of it. Mark Burlingame, who is doing yeoman's work moderating it (the spam you see is just a fraction of the spam that is attempted), is a "moderator" of it but doesn't have full ownership powers.

Several years ago, the owner of the group left, orphaning the group so that it has no "owner" at all. Since there's no owner, there's no way to add new moderators to help Mark.

As a result, the group has some restrictions like "the first person post a member ever makes needs to be manually approved", but Mark is the only person who can do that kind of thing. This is no fun for him, even though he's been very generous with his time and deserves many thanks. It's not a good system: if Mark is on vacation and away from the computer, for example, there's no way for anyone else in the club to allow messages from members, or remove spammers. We're lucky there hasn't been a firestorm of spam, phishing or out-of-control discussion on the list at a time when Mark has been unavailable.

So that (among other reasons) is why I said it probably makes sense to move it to something we control. But don't worry: I and everyone else "in management" understand and appreciate the current advantages of how Bee Talk works. It's a huge part of the benefit of the club and any change we make will ensure the advantages are maintained.

-- 

Robert L Mathews

[Mark Burlingame]

Thank you everyone for the kind words.  I am happy to help keep this list going.  Mark

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Alameda County Beekeepers Association" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to the-alameda-county-beekeep...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/2CBDA0F0-3D42-45B0-8CCE-DD9BE10CC71C%40tigertech.com.