I tried to find the appropriate group, so here it is.
Can someone be subscribed to a newsgroup without their knowledge?
In other words can newsgroup subscriptions be created in a "spamming" type way if your domain and user name is known?
example given would be, you find a newsgroup in netscape mail that you did not subscribe to.

Netscape may include some things it 'feels' you might like.

Or some companies or sites may pay Netscape to be bundled in.

What is the group?

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"I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
-- Charles Babbage, mathematician, computer pioneer, analytical engine designer (1791-1871)
-- (Question: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?')

"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand."
-- Homer Simpson

I used to subscribe and regularly post to alt.donttellthewife and alt.dontletthegovernmentfindout without any problem but recently have noticed mailings from such mainstream and legitimate companies as Apple, PCPro, BrainBuzz, Eltax, Intel etc. etc. and all I can conclude is that I have been spam-added to sites/lists/groups by some subversive scriptkiddies or other. Getting to be so a guy can't sort his dwarf porn and PlasticExplosive Weekly from his unsolicited offers of software updates and forthcoming webevents...

No amount of protestation will get you out of any trouble you have got yourself into with partners/parents/teachers/police/government etc. etc. as there is no way to disprove you didn't do it which makes you incarcerateably guilty. Aren't PCs fun??

If not a theoretical question then just unsubscribe from any offending groups and forget it.

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Putting the "Personally, mate, I'd chuck it out and get myself a new one.." into "PC".

Not sure if I understand, are you getting unsolicited advertisements by email, or is this referring to actual newsgroups showing up in your list that you have not suscribed to?

If it's email, it's possible to find out where it came from and report the IP address to the ISP. It's almost impossible to find out specifically who it came from, most ISPs won't tell you, but many will deactivate the person's internet account due to violations of their Acceptible Use Policies. (I've had 25-30 of them shut down for spam.) Let me know, I'll go into more detail. I'm also planning to add a spam help page to my site, but it's not done yet.

If it's newsgroups showing up, I don't have any answers, I've never seen that happen, and the only ways I know of new ones could show up in your list is if someone has hacked into your computer and put them there, or someone else is using your computer and the newsgroups they are checking are showing up.

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So many idiots, and only six bullets...
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)