From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu May 1 16:24:48 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id QAA02466 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 1 May 1997 16:15:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from colossus.arl.mil (colossus.arl.mil [131.218.204.98]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id QAA02301 for ; Thu, 1 May 1997 16:14:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [131.218.204.98] by colossus.arl.mil with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 1.1.2); Thu, 1 May 1997 19:20:42 -0400 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Organization: Little to None X-Mailer: Eudora 3.0 for Cray Y-MP Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 19:20:05 -0400 To: listmom-talk@skyweyr.com, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Vince Sabio Subject: Need Sendmail Assistance Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi folks, I have some poor sysadmin in India who has sendmail set up to bounce messages back to the "From:" address -- not the "Sender" or "Errors-To" address, if one is present. We listmoms all know what that means: Potential mail loops. Anyway, I dropped my usual, nicely worded, you-and-all-your-offspring- must-die-for-this-mistake(tm) message to the postmaster, who responded rather quickly. (Amazing, how seriously they take the offspring thing over there.) Turns out, he is clueless(tm), but would like some assistance, since it seems that I'm not the first one to threaten his offspring. However, Idunno *squat* about sendmail.cf, so I really cannot help him. That's where *you* (yes, YOU) come in. If you're a sendmail hound with lots of patience *and* the ability to read RFC822 mail typed with a modest Indian accent, please respond to me directly so I can put you in touch with him. He really seems interested in atoning for his sins -- or at least fixing his mistake. Please RSVP to wavelet@colossus.arl.mil (preferably CC me at my listmom account, in case I'm at home: listmom@telephonet.com), since it is quasi- off-topic for these lists -- albeit a rather *important* off-topic issue for us list owners. - Vince Sabio orionsoft@telephonet.com -- If you run a mailing list and are tired of manually processing mail bounces, then you probably need SmartBounce -- currently managing mailing lists in excess of 150,000 subscribers. For more information, send a blank email to or visit . -- From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu May 1 22:54:25 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id WAA02224 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 1 May 1997 22:43:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nmia.com (socrates.nmia.com [198.59.166.170]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with SMTP id WAA02217 for ; Thu, 1 May 1997 22:43:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plato.nmia.com by nmia.com with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.29.1 #3) id m0wNB9C-001JlFC; Thu, 1 May 97 23:44 MDT Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 23:44:46 -0600 (MDT) From: Ozz Graham To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: New here Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I'm fairly new to mailing lsits. I run 2 small lists, and have had a MAJOR problem with servers who use AGIS.NET to route through. Has anyone else had this problem as well? Or am I the unlucky one? ozzg@nmia.com From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu May 1 23:43:54 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id XAA04677 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 1 May 1997 23:26:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id XAA04668 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Thu, 1 May 1997 23:25:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from proxy3.ba.best.com (proxy3.ba.best.com [206.184.139.14]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id XAA28816 for ; Tue, 29 Apr 1997 23:32:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shellx.best.com (shellx.best.com [206.86.0.11]) by proxy3.ba.best.com (8.8.5/8.8.3) with ESMTP id XAA25947 for ; Tue, 29 Apr 1997 23:33:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cnorman@localhost) by shellx.best.com (8.8.5/8.8.3) id XAA00347; Tue, 29 Apr 1997 23:01:55 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 23:01:55 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199704300601.XAA00347@shellx.best.com> From: Cyndi Norman To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM CC: cnorman@shellx.best.com Subject: My vote for the DUH award Reply-to: cnorman@best.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk One of my list members wishes to leave the list. To this end, he has, in the last 2-3 days, sent off at least a dozen unsubscribe messages to the server. Many of them had the command unsubscribe repeated up to 3 times. Each has been processed with the reply "address not found." Today he mailed out 5 or 6 letters with the command unsubscribe all mailed to varying combinations of the server address, the list address, and the admin contact address. Then he mailed me the letter I have attached below (I have removed his name/address) -- the first of 4 in a row, btw. Sigh... Cyndi (p.s. obviously he is listed under an alternate address...and I have told him that.) ------- Start of forwarded message ------- To: immune@best.com From: [subscriber] Subject: List Server Error Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 21:58:49 -0700 >Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 21:50:19 -0700 (PDT) >From: immune-errors@lists.best.com >Sender: immune-errors@lists.best.com >To: [subscriber] >Subject: List Server Error > > >Your post did not go through because only subscribers are allowed >to post to the list. To subscribe, send email to >immune-request@lists.best.com. Use the following commands in >the body of your message: subsingle (regular list); subscribe >(digest list); or alias email_address (to be able to post from >your address without receiving posts.) >Mail any questions to immune@best.com > > >:From owner-immune Tue Apr 29 21:49:32 1997 >:Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 21:45:01 -0700 >:From: [subscriber] >:To: immune@lists.best.com >:CC: immune@best.com >:Subject: (no subject) >:Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >:Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >: >:unsubscribe >Cindi, please get me off this mailing list???????? Many thanks, in advance ------- End of forwarded message ------- From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 2 00:24:47 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id AAA08016 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 2 May 1997 00:09:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id AAA08006 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 2 May 1997 00:09:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from consensus.com (mail.consensus.com [157.22.240.7]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id RAA10710 for ; Thu, 1 May 1997 17:18:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dynamic-addr-192.consensus.com (157.22.240.192) by consensus.com with ESMTP (Apple Internet Mail Server 1.1); Thu, 1 May 1997 17:18:33 -0700 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Organization: Consensus Development Corporation Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 17:18:59 -0700 To: "ListMom-Talk Discussion List" From: Christopher Allen Subject: Re: Need Sendmail Assistance Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 4:20 PM -0700 5/1/97, Vince Sabio wrote: >That's where *you* (yes, YOU) come in. If you're a sendmail hound with >lots of patience *and* the ability to read RFC822 mail typed with a >modest Indian accent, please respond to me directly so I can put you in >touch with him. He really seems interested in atoning for his sins -- or >at least fixing his mistake. Have him buy from Amazon.com the O'Reilly book SENDMAIL, 2nd edition. It is actually fairly good, more complete than just the RFCs, and is probably perfect for him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ..Christopher Allen Consensus Development Corporation.. .. 1563 Solano Avenue #355.. .. Berkeley, CA 94707-2116.. ..Home of "SSL Plus: o510/559-1500 f510/559-1505.. .. SSL 3.0 Integration Suite(tm)" .. From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 2 09:09:31 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id JAA17688 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 2 May 1997 09:02:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gumby.combdyn.com (gumby.combdyn.com [192.203.203.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id JAA17641 for ; Fri, 2 May 1997 09:02:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from lawrence@localhost) by combdyn.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA16160 for List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM; Fri, 2 May 1997 10:03:43 -0600 (MDT) From: Lawrence Chen Message-Id: <199705021603.KAA16160@gumby.combdyn.com> Subject: Re: Need Sendmail Assistance To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM (List-Managers List) Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 10:03:42 -0600 (MDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > At 4:20 PM -0700 5/1/97, Vince Sabio wrote: > >That's where *you* (yes, YOU) come in. If you're a sendmail hound with > >lots of patience *and* the ability to read RFC822 mail typed with a > >modest Indian accent, please respond to me directly so I can put you in > >touch with him. He really seems interested in atoning for his sins -- or > >at least fixing his mistake. > > Have him buy from Amazon.com the O'Reilly book SENDMAIL, 2nd edition. It is > actually fairly good, more complete than just the RFCs, and is probably > perfect for him. > If he's running Sendmail 8.8.x is easy to turn this behaviour on...but its off by default.... >From the manual: UseErrorsTo If there is an "Errors-To:" header, send error messages to the address listed there. They normally go to the envelope sender. Use of this option causes sendmail to violate RFC 1123. The option is disrecommended and deprecated. -- Lawrence Chen, P.Eng. "The Dreamer" VE6LKC/VE6PAQ Computer/Research Engineer Email: lawrence@combdyn.com Combustion Dynamics Ltd. Phone: +1 403 529 2162 #203, 132 4th Avenue S.E. Fax: +1 403 529 2516 Medicine Hat, AB T1A 8B5 URL: http://www.combdyn.com "Just a Crazy Engineer with an Amiga and a Newton MP130" - The Dreamer From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 2 13:42:42 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id NAA23200 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 2 May 1997 13:31:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from colossus.arl.mil (colossus.arl.mil [131.218.204.98]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id NAA23153 for ; Fri, 2 May 1997 13:31:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [131.218.204.98] by colossus.arl.mil with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 1.1.2); Fri, 2 May 1997 16:37:35 -0400 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199705021603.KAA16160@gumby.combdyn.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Organization: Little to None X-Mailer: Eudora 3.0 for Cray Y-MP Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 16:37:25 -0400 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM (List-Managers List), listmom-talk@skyweyr.com From: Vince Sabio Subject: Re: Need Sendmail Assistance Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk ** Sometime around 10:03 -0600 5/2/97, Lawrence Chen sent everyone: >> At 4:20 PM -0700 5/1/97, Vince Sabio wrote: >> >That's where *you* (yes, YOU) come in. If you're a sendmail hound with >> >lots of patience *and* the ability to read RFC822 mail typed with a >> >modest Indian accent, please respond to me directly so I can put you in >> >touch with him. He really seems interested in atoning for his sins -- or >> >at least fixing his mistake. >> >If he's running Sendmail 8.8.x is easy to turn this behaviour on...but its >off by default.... > >From the manual: > >UseErrorsTo > >If there is an "Errors-To:" header, send error messages to the address listed >there. They normally go to the envelope sender. Use of this option causes >sendmail to violate RFC 1123. The option is disrecommended and deprecated. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Ya gotta love a manual with a sense of humor. However, using "Errors-To" would not have solved his problem, since not all MLMs use that header entry; in fact, most of the ones that I know use the "Sender" header line. In any event, though -- and to follow up with the lists -- I now have a sendmail aficionado following up with the guy, so hopefully he'll get his act together. One down, 34971 more to go ... - Vince S. wavelet@colossus.arl.mil "So many idiots; so few comets." From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 2 23:09:32 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id XAA19506 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 2 May 1997 23:00:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nmia.com (socrates.nmia.com [198.59.166.170]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with SMTP id XAA19498 for ; Fri, 2 May 1997 23:00:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plato.nmia.com by nmia.com with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.29.1 #3) id m0wNXtk-001JXGC; Sat, 3 May 97 00:02 MDT Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 00:02:20 -0600 (MDT) From: Ozz Graham To: jonathon cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: New here In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Except the problem to get worse -- far worse, before it gets > better, if it gets better. One thing that doesn't make sense is that I can email the user no problem, she can email me, as well as I can email the System Adminstrator with no problem either. All notes go thru, however, my mailing list software comes back with an error that says its timing out. I send out in digest format only, no single message mailings go out. Hows that for a question? Ozz From owner-list-managers-outgoing Mon May 5 13:24:46 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id NAA18385 for list-managers-outgoing; Mon, 5 May 1997 13:11:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from colossus.arl.mil (colossus.arl.mil [131.218.204.98]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id NAA18290 for ; Mon, 5 May 1997 13:11:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [131.218.204.98] by colossus.arl.mil with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 1.1.2); Mon, 5 May 1997 16:10:46 -0400 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Organization: Little to None X-Mailer: Eudora 3.0 for Cray Y-MP Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 16:10:26 -0400 To: listmom-talk@skyweyr.com, List-Managers@greatcircle.com From: Vince Sabio Subject: Re: Need Sendmail Assistance Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk ** Sometime around 11:31 -0400 5/3/97, Keith Moore said: >> I have some poor sysadmin in India who has sendmail set up to bounce >> messages back to the "From:" address -- not the "Sender" or "Errors-To" >> address, if one is present. > >Bouncing to either the Sender or the Errors-To address is also wrong. >Mail bounces go to the envelope return-path, period. As I understand it: 1. Return-path is not always provided (e.g., LISTSERV and ListProc use Sender). 2. "Sender" is legal according to RFC822. If that has been negated by a downstream RFC, I'm not aware of it. Also, I never *endorsed* the use of "Errors-To" (and do not recommend its use), but it is better than blindly using the address on the From line. (Well, IMO. Which certainly ain't perfekt.) >At any rate, this is almost certainly not a sendmail configuration error. >Sendmail bounces mail to the right place, (unless you enable ErrorsTo >processing). More likely, there is some upstream gateway which is >filtering out the envelope sender information. >From what I can gather (or, more accurately, from what the person who is helping out the confused sysadmin has gathered), it seems as if sendmail is trying to deliver the message TO the address on the From line, rather than bouncing it as it should; this behavior seems to have been caused by a configuration error on the part of the sysadmin. In any event, as I mentioned in a subsequent message, there is now someone with sendmail experience helping out the sysadmin in this case, so it should [hopefully] be getting resolved. - Vince S. wavelet@colossus.arl.mil -- For info on HumourNet--the Internet's moderated mailing list for humor-- send the command INFO HUMORNET (only one U) to listproc@csf.colorado.edu -- Because The Only GOOD Spammer is a DEAD Spammer From owner-list-managers-outgoing Mon May 5 13:40:20 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id NAA21380 for list-managers-outgoing; Mon, 5 May 1997 13:33:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sacmgr.mp.usbr.gov (sacmgr.mp.usbr.gov [140.214.12.4]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with SMTP id NAA21318 for ; Mon, 5 May 1997 13:33:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: by sacto.mp.usbr.gov (MX V4.2A VAX) id 1; Mon, 05 May 1997 13:35:23 PDT Date: Mon, 05 May 1997 13:35:21 PDT From: "Henry W. Miller" To: list-abuse@clio.lyris.net, list-managers@greatcircle.com CC: henrym@sacto.mp.usbr.gov Message-ID: <009B3CE1.A484F860.1@sacto.mp.usbr.gov> Subject: Prelude to a SPAM? Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Sorry for the double posting, but I just saw this in my mail queue (I'm running the MX package for VMS) and it excited my suspicion: 12 CANCLD 0 SMTP 14 FINISH 855 MAIL %MCP-I-QENTRIES, total matching entries: 10 MCP> que show/full 12 Entry: 12, Origin unknown Status: CANCELLED, size: 0 bytes Created: 5-MAY-1997 13:25:27.78, expires 4-JUN-1997 13:25:27.78 Last modified 5-MAY-1997 13:25:28.52 %MCP-I-QENTRIES, total matching entries: 1 MCP> Exit SACUSR>whois yoyo.com Yoyodyne Entertainment (YOYO-DOM) 200 Boston Ave. Suite 1800 Medford, MA 02155 Domain Name: YOYO.COM Administrative Contact: Lovy, Dan (DL375) dlovy@WORLD.STD.COM 617-395-1957 (FAX) 617-395-3937 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: DNS Administrations (DA41-ORG) dnsadmin@BITWISE.NET (617) 261-4700 Fax: (617) 261-7788 Billing Contact: Lovy, Dan (DL375) dlovy@WORLD.STD.COM 617-395-1957 (FAX) 617-395-3937 Record last updated on 27-Apr-97. Record created on 28-Nov-94. Database last updated on 5-May-97 06:01:19 EDT. Domain servers in listed order: BITWISE.NET 204.97.222.2 NS1.SPRINTLINK.NET 204.117.214.10 NS2.BITWISE.NET 204.97.222.5 The InterNIC Registration Services Host contains ONLY Internet Information (Networks, ASN's, Domains, and POC's). Please use the whois server at nic.ddn.mil for MILNET Information. Has anyone else seen a suspicious incomplete message flaoting around their system like this? -HWM From owner-list-managers-outgoing Mon May 5 14:40:08 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id OAA00646 for list-managers-outgoing; Mon, 5 May 1997 14:37:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from atheria.europa.com (atheria.europa.com [199.2.194.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with SMTP id OAA00622 for ; Mon, 5 May 1997 14:37:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from thetics.europa.com(really [199.2.194.14]) by atheria.europa.com via sendmail with smtp id for ; Mon, 5 May 1997 14:39:24 -0700 (PDT) (Smail-3.2.0.91 1997-Jan-14 #4 built 1997-Jan-19) Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 14:39:23 -0700 (PDT) From: kali To: "Henry W. Miller" cc: list-abuse@clio.lyris.net, list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: Prelude to a SPAM? In-Reply-To: <009B3CE1.A484F860.1@sacto.mp.usbr.gov> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > 12 CANCLD 0 SMTP > SACUSR>whois yoyo.com > Yoyodyne Entertainment (YOYO-DOM) > 200 Boston Ave. Suite 1800 > Medford, MA 02155 > > Domain Name: YOYO.COM > > Has anyone else seen a suspicious incomplete message flaoting > around their system like this? I don't about the other thing, but yoyo.com and the dogbertmailer are totally legit (and cool!) things. Yoyodyne runs contests for several different businesses and organizations (including Rolling Stone and other big ones), they also happen to run the Dilbert (popular comic strip) stuff. One of their "newsletters" for Dilbert is dogbertmailer@yoyo.com and they are very good about sending it only to people that request it. It may have been a "forged" subscription, but this address is legit and not related to spamming. -kali From owner-list-managers-outgoing Mon May 5 22:39:38 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id WAA10848 for list-managers-outgoing; Mon, 5 May 1997 22:24:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sacmgr.mp.usbr.gov (sacmgr.mp.usbr.gov [140.214.12.4]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with SMTP id WAA10816 for ; Mon, 5 May 1997 22:24:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: by sacto.mp.usbr.gov (MX V4.2A VAX) id 5; Mon, 05 May 1997 22:26:30 PDT Date: Mon, 05 May 1997 22:26:27 PDT From: "Henry W. Miller" To: kali@europa.com CC: list-abuse@clio.lyris.net, list-managers@greatcircle.com, henrym@sacto.mp.usbr.gov Message-ID: <009B3D2B.D694FB30.5@sacto.mp.usbr.gov> Subject: Re: Prelude to a SPAM? Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > From: MX%"kali@europa.com" "kali" 5-MAY-1997 14:39:52.98 > Subj: Re: Prelude to a SPAM? > > 12 CANCLD 0 SMTP > > > SACUSR>whois yoyo.com > > Yoyodyne Entertainment (YOYO-DOM) > > 200 Boston Ave. Suite 1800 > > Medford, MA 02155 > > > > Domain Name: YOYO.COM > > > > Has anyone else seen a suspicious incomplete message flaoting > > around their system like this? > > I don't about the other thing, but yoyo.com and the dogbertmailer are > totally legit (and cool!) things. Yoyodyne runs contests for several > different businesses and organizations (including Rolling Stone and other > big ones), they also happen to run the Dilbert (popular comic strip) > stuff. One of their "newsletters" for Dilbert is dogbertmailer@yoyo.com > and they are very good about sending it only to people that request it. > > It may have been a "forged" subscription, but this address is legit and > not related to spamming. > > -kali > Kali, Thanks for that update. I'm not really the paranoid type, but it just looked a little too suspicious for me. -HWM From owner-list-managers-outgoing Tue May 6 03:39:43 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id DAA20218 for list-managers-outgoing; Tue, 6 May 1997 03:12:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from 205.160.21.65 (ec2.earthchannel.com [205.160.21.65]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with SMTP id DAA20195 for ; Tue, 6 May 1997 03:11:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ec12.earthchannel.com (unverified [205.160.21.75]) by ec3.earthchannel.com (EMWAC SMTPRS 0.83) with SMTP id ; Tue, 06 May 1997 06:13:48 -0400 Message-ID: Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Gess Shankar" Organization: Earth Channel Communications LLC To: list-abuse@clio.lyris.net, list-managers@greatcircle.com Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 06:11:26 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Prelude to a SPAM? Reply-to: gess@earthchannel.com In-reply-to: <009B3D2B.D694FB30.5@sacto.mp.usbr.gov> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.53/R1) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 5 May 97 at 22:26, Henry W. Miller wrote: > > > > It may have been a "forged" subscription, but this address is legit and > > not related to spamming. > > Thanks for that update. I'm not really the paranoid type, but it > just looked a little too suspicious for me. > Legit or not, they sure are sending UCE out big time. A snippet from their longish email follows. BTW: I am NOT one of their esteemed players. I had never heard of them before and I have not played any games as they claim. My lists have not been hit yet, however. Received: by lizardo.yoyo.com (AIX 4.1/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA66078; Mon, 5 May 1997 22:19:39 -0400 Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 22:19:39 -0400 Message-Id: <9705060219.AA66078@lizardo.yoyo.com> To: gess@earthchannel.com X-Yoyodyne: Yoyodyne Entertainment From: Yoyodyne Entertainment Reply-To: yoyomailer@yoyo.com Subject: Read This and You Could Win $100 from Yoyodyne! X-PMFLAGS: 33554560 0 ---------------------- THE YOYODYNE QUARTERLY ---------------------- Greetings from Yoyodyne! Now that spring is here, we're announcing some new games and new prizes. The games are fun and the prizes range from a trip to the Caribbean to money, money, money. We're not kidding! Last year, we awarded *a million dollars* to Ray Burns (of Lancaster, PA) who played one of our games. Read on to find out how you could win a cool hundred bucks right now.... ---------------------------- Why You're Getting This Mail ---------------------------- You are one of our esteemed players, and we want to keep you amused, entertained, and informed. So that's why we're sending you this quarterly Yoyodyne update. [etc etc] Gess :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Gess Shankar pax vobiscum gess@earthchannel.com http://www.earthchannel.com Earth Channel Communications, LLC. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: From owner-list-managers-outgoing Wed May 7 18:29:30 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA12081 for list-managers-outgoing; Wed, 7 May 1997 18:18:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id SAA12070 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 7 May 1997 18:18:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mushi.colo.neosoft.com (mushi.colo.neosoft.com [206.109.6.82]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with SMTP id XAA24508 for ; Mon, 5 May 1997 23:43:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 4364 invoked from network); 6 May 1997 06:46:20 -0000 Received: from bonkers.neosoft.com (HELO bonkers.taronga.com) (root@206.109.2.48) by mushi.colo.neosoft.com with SMTP; 6 May 1997 06:46:20 -0000 Received: (from arielle@localhost) by bonkers.taronga.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id BAA04282 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Tue, 6 May 1997 01:46:07 -0500 From: arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva) Message-Id: <199705060646.BAA04282@bonkers.taronga.com> Subject: Re: The "Duh!" Awards To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 01:46:07 -0500 (CDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > It's time for a new class, the "Duh" Award. I bring this up > because it has happened to me twice in the past week and a half. Here's mine. I occasionally get people saying "please unsubscribe me from your list." This isn't particularly intuitive, since I have 5 lists runnign on my server, only two of them mine. Plus because of the PAML, people will ask me to unsubscribe me to lists I have nothing to do with, but that's another story. Anyhow, this must hit the very bottom of the clueless meter. Recent exchange: CL: Please unsubscribe me from your mailing list. Me: Before I can do this, you'll need to tell me the name of the list. CL: I don't know.... From owner-list-managers-outgoing Wed May 7 18:41:37 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA12021 for list-managers-outgoing; Wed, 7 May 1997 18:17:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id SAA12003 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 7 May 1997 18:17:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from miles.greatcircle.com (miles.greatcircle.com [198.102.244.34]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id RAA04143 for ; Mon, 5 May 1997 17:47:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from lucius.ultra.net (lucius.ultra.net [199.232.56.38]) by miles.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Miles-970308-2) with ESMTP id RAA05974 for ; Mon, 5 May 1997 17:18:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from voyager (d11.dial-2.wal.ma.ultra.net [146.115.77.43]) by lucius.ultra.net (8.8.5/ult1.05) with SMTP id UAA32384; Mon, 5 May 1997 20:16:40 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <2.2.32.19970506001724.0030368c@pop.ma.ultranet.com> X-Sender: stanr@pop.ma.ultranet.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.2 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 05 May 1997 20:17:24 -0400 To: listmom-talk@skyweyr.com, List-Managers@greatcircle.com From: Stan Ryckman Subject: Re: Need Sendmail Assistance Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 04:10 PM 5/5/97 -0400, Vince Sabio wrote: >** Sometime around 11:31 -0400 5/3/97, Keith Moore said: > >>> I have some poor sysadmin in India who has sendmail set up to bounce >>> messages back to the "From:" address -- not the "Sender" or "Errors-To" >>> address, if one is present. >> >>Bouncing to either the Sender or the Errors-To address is also wrong. >>Mail bounces go to the envelope return-path, period. > >As I understand it: > >1. Return-path is not always provided (e.g., LISTSERV and ListProc use >Sender). Actually, if present, it's provided locally at delivery. From RFC822: 4.3.1. RETURN-PATH This field is added by the final transport system that delivers the message to its recipient. The field is intended to contain definitive information about the address and route back to the message's originator. Note: The "Reply-To" field is added by the originator and serves to direct replies, whereas the "Return-Path" field is used to identify a path back to the origina- tor. While the syntax indicates that a route specification is optional, every attempt should be made to provide that infor- mation in this field. Thus it has nothing to do with what various MLMs use to identify themselves in RFC822 headers. Note, however, the key word "envelope" that Keith used. This is discussed in RFC1123; check out 5.3.3 and 5.3.6 there, in particular. Also, I find it surprising that 5.3.7(E) is a SHOULD rather than a MUST (this talks about gateways, though). Cheers, Stan From owner-list-managers-outgoing Wed May 7 18:55:08 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA11729 for list-managers-outgoing; Wed, 7 May 1997 18:15:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id SAA11701 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 7 May 1997 18:14:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hustle.rahul.net (hustle.rahul.net [192.160.13.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with SMTP id KAA20107; Mon, 5 May 1997 10:06:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: by hustle.rahul.net with UUCP id AA27388 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5); Mon, 5 May 1997 10:08:42 -0700 Received: from antares.starshine.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by antares.starshine.org (8.8.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id JAA11274; Mon, 5 May 1997 09:59:58 -0700 Message-Id: <199705051659.JAA11274@antares.starshine.org> To: Jerry Peek Cc: majordomo-users@greatcircle.com, list-managers@greatcircle.com, ftpmail-workers@doc.ic.ac.uk X-Mailer: MH 8.6.3 Subject: Re: Reviewers needed for MIIS book chapters In-Reply-To: <18685.857757471@hrothgar.gw.com> Message Apparently From Jerry Peek Dated Fri, 07 Mar 1997 09:57:51 PST. Date: Mon, 05 May 1997 09:59:57 -0700 From: Jim Dennis Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > The second edition of O'Reilly's "Managing Internet Information Services" > is coming soon. Like the first edition, it has a section about email > services: two chapters cover mailing lists in general, two cover > Majordomo 1.94.1, and one is about ftpmail. I'm looking for reviewers > who'll read the draft section thoroughly and give me detailed feedback. > > I'd like to get a mix of experts and newbies. I especially need > a couple of reviewers who will *do* the installation instructions > (not just read them and say "hmm, that seems okay"). If you can > help, please send me email. Tell me about your background and your > experience with email services. The review starts mid-March. > > Thanks (from me and the book's future readers)! Reviewers' work > is always a big help; it makes the book clearer for other readers. > -- > Jerry Peek, jpeek@jpeek.com, http://www.jpeek.com/~jpeek/ Jerry, Is it too late to sign up for this review cycle? I've read the first edition of this book -- and I've reviewed other books for O'Reilly in the past. My consulting service provides Unix sysadmin support and training. So a large part of what I do involves the installation, configuration, upgrade, tuning and troubleshooting of Internet and intranet services. I've used almost every chapter of your book many times. (I haven't set up any WAIS or Gopher servers yet -- they seem to be a dying breed). I've also written articles that will soon be appearing in SysAdmin Magazine and in The Linux Journal (these have already been accepted). Please let me know if you need any other details. -- Jim Dennis, info@mail.starshine.org Proprietor, consulting@mail.starshine.org Starshine Technical Services http://www.starshine.org PGP 1024/2ABF03B1 Jim Dennis Key fingerprint = 2524E3FEF0922A84 A27BDEDB38EBB95A From owner-list-managers-outgoing Wed May 7 18:59:58 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA12930 for list-managers-outgoing; Wed, 7 May 1997 18:28:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id SAA12921 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 7 May 1997 18:28:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dream.vol.net.mt (dream.vol.net.mt [194.166.35.200]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id EAA00295 for ; Wed, 7 May 1997 04:02:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [194.166.35.199] (svastara.vol.net.mt) by dream.vol.net.mt with ESMTP (1.39.111.2/16.2) id AA149993158; Wed, 7 May 1997 13:05:58 +0200 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 13:08:13 +0100 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: "Ljubisa Gavrilovic (LJ)" Subject: help Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I have installed the majordomo on Linux. The programs are working fine but there is some problem that i cannot figure out why it is happening. The error occurs when someone tries to unsubscribe from the open list. Error generated is the following: Users response: > >>>> unsubscribe jokes > >>> Sorry, an error has occurred while processing your request > >>> The caretaker of Majordomo ( Lists-Owner@hope.vol.net.mt ) has been >notified > >>> of the problem. Owner notification: MAJORDOMO ABORT (mj_majordomo)!! chmod(33204, "/home/lists/majordomo-1.94.1/lists/jokes.new"): Operation not permitted the files have permits and ownership as specified: ~~$ pwd /home/lists ~~$ ll total 3 drwx------ 2 lists maillist 1024 Feb 14 07:38 Mail lrwxrwxrwx 1 lists maillist 11 Feb 11 20:19 majordomo-1.94.1 -> majordomo_f drwxrwx--x 8 lists maillist 1024 May 6 17:54 majordomo_f ~~/majordomo_f$ pwd /home/lists/majordomo_f ~~/majordomo_f$ ll total 252 -rw-rw-r-- 1 lists maillist 12296 May 6 17:54 Log drwxr-xr-x 2 lists maillist 1024 Feb 11 20:03 Tools drwxrwxr-x 2 lists maillist 1024 Feb 14 08:54 archive -rwxr-xr-x 1 lists maillist 4707 Feb 11 20:03 archive2.pl drwxr-xr-x 2 lists maillist 1024 Feb 11 20:03 bin -rwxr-xr-x 1 lists maillist 2795 Feb 11 20:03 bounce-remind -rwxr-xr-x 1 lists maillist 10499 Feb 11 20:03 config-test -rwxr-xr-x 1 lists maillist 47831 Feb 11 20:03 config_parse.pl -rwxr-xr-x 1 lists maillist 12071 Feb 11 20:03 digest drwxrwxr-x 2 lists maillist 1024 May 7 03:46 lists drwxr-xr-x 3 lists maillist 1024 Feb 11 20:12 mail -rwxr-xr-x 1 lists maillist 57248 Feb 11 21:18 majordomo -rw-r--r-- 1 lists maillist 10033 Feb 14 08:47 majordomo.cf -rwxr-xr-x 1 lists maillist 23624 Feb 11 20:03 majordomo.pl -rwxr-xr-x 1 lists maillist 137 Feb 11 20:03 majordomo_version.pl drwxr-xr-x 4 lists maillist 1024 Feb 11 20:03 man -rwxr-xr-x 1 lists maillist 3532 Feb 11 20:03 request-answer -rwxr-xr-x 1 lists maillist 30128 Feb 11 20:03 resend -rw-r--r-- 1 lists maillist 10023 Feb 11 20:03 sample.cf -rwxr-xr-x 1 lists maillist 7873 Feb 11 20:03 shlock.pl -rwxr-xr-x 1 lists maillist 6497 Feb 11 20:32 wrapper ~~/majordomo_f$ cd lists ~~/majordomo_f/lists$ ll total 45 -rw-rw-r-- 1 lists maillist 183 May 6 18:59 jokes -rw-rw-r-- 1 lists maillist 0 Feb 11 21:09 jokes.auto -rw-rw-r-- 1 lists maillist 423 Feb 15 16:04 jokes.config -rw-rw-r-- 1 lists maillist 698 Feb 13 12:53 jokes.info -rw-rw-r-- 1 lists maillist 0 May 6 17:54 jokes.new -rw-rw-r-- 1 lists maillist 14814 Feb 11 21:48 jokes.old.config -rw-rw-r-- 1 lists maillist 11 Feb 11 21:34 jokes.passwd I'm running majordomo version 1.94.1. Any suggestions how to fix a problem? Best regards, Ljubisa Gavrilovic Malta From owner-list-managers-outgoing Wed May 7 19:10:09 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA13354 for list-managers-outgoing; Wed, 7 May 1997 18:30:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id SAA13346 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 7 May 1997 18:30:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from chrome.office.aol.com (chrome.office.aol.com [152.163.67.244]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id KAA05908 for ; Wed, 7 May 1997 10:49:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (brad@localhost) by chrome.office.aol.com (8.8.6.Alpha2/8.8.5/AOL-0.0.7) with ESMTP id NAA28668; Wed, 7 May 1997 13:51:37 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705071751.NAA28668@chrome.office.aol.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0gamma 1/27/96 Reply-To: KnowlesB@aol.net Organization: America Online, Inc. X-Telefacsimile: (703) 453-4013 X-PGP-Fingerprint: DA 2A 59 B1 A8 BD 4C B2 B0 41 CE 6E BD C3 15 54 X-Face: "HJz{@e(gkOmJfq8b$n:zW8Kk4*`Sz1?<#`g=5p>Wuu7DkDV`m-*p[Yb=?;w(F:L'DHA{mO]=iKKKdH)r%I7K;dvYQ{3Y6"3MW@Y*U_6?>lOw;GIva\?7579Ii|/$t"\+lE, Michael Ramundo , Jeff Kell , Pete Weiss , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, Eric Thomas Subject: Re: rejected mail - RFC822 conflict ??? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 07 May 1997 13:51:36 -0400 From: Brad Knowles Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Folks, I've been informed that there is some discussion going on in these two lists regarding our refusal to accept source-routed mail. Well, it's true. We do refuse to accept email with source-routed envelope addresses. I also know what RFC 1123, section 5.2.19 says. I'm also on the IETF DRUMS WG, and I know what the upcoming drafts say with regards to refusing mail (see section 7.5 of ). I quote: It is a well-established principle that an SMTP server may refuse to accept mail for any operational or technical reason that makes sense to the site providing the server. Specifically, source-routed mail has historically been the source of no end of problems, and frequently abused by less savoury types in attempts to ensure that they don't have to deal with their bounces, etc..., we consider this an operational issue and will refuse to accept mail with source-routed envelope addresses. Our general approach is one whereby if we can't determine that we could bounce a message if we had to (i.e., a message comes in for a nonexistant AOL user, or for one whose mailbox is full), then we won't accept that message. The standards are much more forceful on the issue of accepting full responsibility for a mail message once you've accepted the message itself, and that responsibility extends to delivering error messages back to the sender if there is some sort of problem. At some point in time, the RFC 1123 "Robustness Principle" (section 1.1.2) continues the propagation of more and more bad systems, because properly behaved systems are required to continue to be tolerant of poor behaviour, thus ensuring that we'll *never* free ourselves from those shackles. Essentially as much has been observed by various Internet mail experts, many of whom are working on drafting the upcoming standards. I know that I will personally work to ensure that source-routed email is deprecated as much as possible, preferably to the status of "MUST NOT generate/MUST NOT accept". In the meanwhile, AOL will refuse to accept email with source-routed envelope addresses, and I'll contribute my sendmail.cf rewrite rules to Eric Allman in hopes that I can convince him to incorporate them in an upcoming release of sendmail (at least as a FEATURE() you can turn on, if not turned on by default). As Jeff Kell noted on LSTOWN-L, since you can change the configuration of ListServ so that it doesn't generate source-routed email messages, this shouldn't pose too big of a problem for you. I'd like to see this default changed in upcoming releases of ListServ, so that in the future, email with source-routed envelope addresses will not be generated unless you explicitly configure it to do so. -- Brad Knowles MIME/PGP: KnowlesB@aol.net Senior Unix Administrator -- Brad Knowles MIME/PGP: KnowlesB@aol.net Senior Unix Administrator From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu May 8 03:43:23 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id DAA22449 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 8 May 1997 03:35:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ozemail.com.au (server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net [203.108.7.41]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id DAA22438 for ; Thu, 8 May 1997 03:35:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from home-computer (syd02-144.magna.com.au [203.111.80.144]) by ozemail.com.au (8.8.4/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA13759 for ; Thu, 8 May 1997 20:35:01 +1000 (EST) Message-ID: <3371AC1F.E09@ozemail.com.au> Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 20:34:07 +1000 From: Graeme Read & Grant Whittingham Reply-To: whitread@ozemail.com.au X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Threats from an unsubscribed list member Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi fellow list managers, I've been on this list for several months and appreciated the policy and technical tips that you have all contributed. Sometimes the software talk is a little over my head but it's only by reading this stuff that it will start to make sense and sink in. I run a list for approximately 200 people. There hasn't been any of the real drama mentioned by some of you as happening on your lists (the death threat, legal action situations come to mind). Well, until now. About two months ago I subscribed someone to the list who began causing a lot of trouble by sending multiple posts day after day, contributing nothing to the discussion and often just seeming to indulge in self promotion. He immediately had a large chunk of the list subscribers offside and the complaints started rolling in. As I started the list with a policy of open discussion and "sensible freedom of speech" I didn't take any action, hoping he would get sick of it and calm down. Disturbingly, he also seemed to gain a small but vocal support group on the list. I was dealing with an incensed "silent majority" whilst he claimed the moral high ground and pointed to his supporters as validating anything he choose to send to the list. After a warning to him that was ignored and two months worth of sarcastic comments about me posted to the list, not to mention a number of complaints from normally quiet subscribers, I have been forced, reluctantly, to unsubscribe him. The first person I've unsubscribed for such a reason. I wrote a letter to my list explaining why I had done it and, to my surprise, I have received about 12 replies thanking me and telling me not to worry about it. I have had reason to doubt his emotional stability at times during the last two months but a post I received tonight has confirmed that there is something definitely wrong with him. It was a tirade of personal abuse accusing me of being a dictator amongst other things I'd rather not go into here. More disturbingly he made a couple of very clear threats - that I had met my "Waterloo" in him and that he would do everything he could to oppose me, the list and have it shut down. You people have had much more experience in dealing with this kind of thing than me. What should I do about the situation? Should I be worried? Should I take any action? I admit that it has shaken me up somewhat. Your advice would be appreciated. Graeme Read Sydney, Australia whitread@ozemail.com.au From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu May 8 05:58:25 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id FAA00440 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 8 May 1997 05:50:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from heimdall-nf1.usafa.af.mil (HEIMDALL.USAFA.AF.MIL [204.34.211.17]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with SMTP id FAA00432 for ; Thu, 8 May 1997 05:50:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from www.usafa.af.mil by heimdall-nf1.usafa.af.mil via smtpd (for honor.greatcircle.com [198.102.244.44]) with SMTP; 8 May 1997 12:50:38 UT Received: from vulcan.usafa.af.mil by atlas.usafa.af.mil (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id GAA29431; Thu, 8 May 1997 06:47:07 -0600 Received: from hellcat by vulcan.usafa.af.mil (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id GAA21641; Thu, 8 May 1997 06:44:36 -0600 From: satin@vulcan.usafa.af.mil (Satin Zeine-Johnson) Received: by hellcat (SMI-8.6) id GAA03025; Thu, 8 May 1997 06:48:29 -0600 Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 06:48:29 -0600 Message-Id: <199705081248.GAA03025@hellcat> To: jpeek@jpeek.com Subject: Re: Reviewers needed for MIIS book chapters Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > > > > The second edition of O'Reilly's "Managing Internet Information Services" > > is coming soon. Like the first edition, it has a section about email > > services: two chapters cover mailing lists in general, two cover > > Majordomo 1.94.1, and one is about ftpmail. I'm looking for reviewers > > who'll read the draft section thoroughly and give me detailed feedback. > > Yeah! I need this book. I will be happy to review, if you still need people. I am currently the Internet Services Administrator at the US Air Force Academy. I have minimal sysadmin skills. Mostly the ones relating to the WWW, listservers, etc. I run the majordomo list server here, have installed NEWS, that sort of thing... I have huge sysadmin skill gaps because I dont do it or have the opportunity to do so much. Anything that helps me figure out why majordomo is blowing up or my news server is having a cow is a blessing! Sendmail is in the category of "need to learn" "when I can get a chance". > > I'd like to get a mix of experts and newbies. I especially need > > a couple of reviewers who will *do* the installation instructions > > (not just read them and say "hmm, that seems okay"). If you can > > help, please send me email. Tell me about your background and your > > experience with email services. The review starts mid-March. > > I think I AM a mix of expert and newbie - depends on what part of the system you mean I will also do the install instructions for different things, if you need me to. > > Thanks (from me and the book's future readers)! Reviewers' work > > is always a big help; it makes the book clearer for other readers. Hope I can help. Satin Zeine-Johnson, GS-12, DAF USAFA Internet Services Administator/Postmaster 10th ComSq/SCBNI, US Air Force Academy http://www.usafa.af.mil/ O- Dea Reticula Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy. -- Joseph Campbell From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu May 8 07:20:14 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id HAA06753 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 8 May 1997 07:00:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from grinch.whoville.leftbank.com (grinch.leftbank.com [139.167.128.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with SMTP id HAA06726 for ; Thu, 8 May 1997 07:00:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zax.whoville.leftbank.com by grinch.whoville.leftbank.com via smtpd (for honor.greatcircle.com [198.102.244.44]) with SMTP; 8 May 1997 14:00:32 UT Received: (from nmehl@localhost) by zax.leftbank.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/LeftBank-1.1/http://www.leftbank.com/) id KAA21444; Thu, 8 May 1997 10:01:11 -0400 (EDT) From: "Nathan J. Mehl" Message-Id: <199705081401.KAA21444@zax.leftbank.com> Subject: Re: Threats from an unsubscribed list member To: whitread@ozemail.com.au Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 10:01:10 -0400 (EDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <3371AC1F.E09@ozemail.com.au> from "Graeme Read & Grant Whittingham" at May 8, 97 08:34:07 pm X-Abby-Says: Nathan, you keep getting to be the first person who does things to me X-My-Minions: Took over Lunacon...and Minbar. X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In the immortal words of Graeme Read & Grant Whittingham: > More disturbingly he made a couple of very clear > threats - that I had met my "Waterloo" in him and that he would do > everything he could to oppose me, the list and have it shut down. > You people have had much more experience in dealing with this kind of > thing than me. What should I do about the situation? Should I be > worried? Should I take any action? By and large, my advice would be to ignore it. People who actually have the technical skills to follow up on threats of this nature are an extremely tiny subset of the ones that actually make the threats. More than likely, you're deal with yet another of the emotionally stunted sociopath crew that make administering any public resource on the net such a royal pain in the ass occasionially. If he's making legal threats, say "I'm sorry, but if you're threatening a lawsuit, I can no longer speak with you. Please direct any further communication to my lawer at this address..." If he's threatening technical disruption of the list, save a few of the messages and go to his sysadmin and/or the police. If he's just venting personal abuse, set up a filter to bounce his email. Best of luck, -n -- Don't blame me -- I voted for the Unabomber! Nathan J. Mehl -- The Left Bank Operation (work) nmehl@leftbank.com -- http://www.leftbank.com (play) memory@blank.org -- http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nmehl/ From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu May 8 11:14:28 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id LAA26494 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 8 May 1997 11:04:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from webster.m-w.com ([206.98.43.4]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with SMTP id LAA26475 for ; Thu, 8 May 1997 11:04:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: by m-w.com (NeXT-1.0 (From Sendmail 5.52)/NeXT-2.0) id AA18078; Thu, 8 May 97 13:51:26 EDT Date: Thu, 8 May 97 13:51:26 EDT From: awest@webster.m-w.com (Amy West) Message-Id: <9705081751.AA18078@m-w.com> To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com In-Reply-To: List-Managers-Digest's message of Thu, 8 May 1997 01:00:30 -0700 (PDT) <199705080800.BAA10566@honor.greatcircle.com> Subject: announcement list on listproc vs. majordomo Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk So, we don't have an MLM installed yet, and I'm trying to decide which is best for doing an announcement list (where only 1 or 2 people are allowed to post). Anyone have any experience setting up such a list on ListProc or Majordomo and an opinion as to the ease of doing it? Also, anyone have any experiences installing and running either MLM on a NeXT? I've been cut-off from my newsserver for a bit and can't get to the comp.sys.next.sysadmin group to ask. Thanks, Amy From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu May 8 16:58:22 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id QAA02537 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 8 May 1997 16:43:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ariel.macarthur.uws.EDU.AU (ariel.macarthur.uws.EDU.AU [137.154.72.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id QAA02519 for ; Thu, 8 May 1997 16:42:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from CAROL_OLIVER.MACARTHUR.UWS.EDU.AU ([137.154.77.99]) by ariel.macarthur.uws.EDU.AU (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA27438; Fri, 9 May 1997 09:42:21 +1100 Message-Id: <199705082242.JAA27438@ariel.macarthur.uws.EDU.AU> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Carol Oliver" Organization: UWS Macarthur To: "Nathan J. Mehl" Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 10:44:17 +0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Threats from an unsubscribed list member CC: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-reply-to: <199705081401.KAA21444@zax.leftbank.com> References: <3371AC1F.E09@ozemail.com.au> from "Graeme Read & Grant Whittingham" at May 8, 97 08:34:07 pm X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.52) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In the immortal words of Graeme Read & Grant Whittingham: > More disturbingly he made a couple of very clear > threats - that I had met my "Waterloo" in him and that he would do > everything he could to oppose me, the list and have it shut down. > You people have had much more experience in dealing with this kind of > thing than me. What should I do about the situation? Should I be > worried? Should I take any action? I agree with Nathan's sentiments, especially on bouncing the mail. This guy needs a stage...I wouldn't give to him, even off the list. Not worth your time. Carol Oliver University of Western Sydney Macarthur From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu May 8 19:58:26 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id TAA00685 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 8 May 1997 19:52:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell.wco.com (shell.wco.com [199.4.94.16]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id TAA00669 for ; Thu, 8 May 1997 19:52:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from default (volans103.wco.com [207.48.88.103]) by shell.wco.com (8.8.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA13313; Thu, 8 May 1997 19:52:20 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970508195021.010a4748@mail.wco.com> X-Sender: 2bits@mail.wco.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 19:52:21 -0700 To: whitread@ozemail.com.au From: "Todd O." <2bits@wco.com> Subject: Re: Threats from an unsubscribed list member Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 08:34 PM 5/8/97 +1000, Graeme Read & Grant Whittingham wrote: >You people have had much more experience in dealing with this kind of >thing than me. What should I do about the situation? Should I be >worried? Should I take any action? Graeme: I had a similar situation with a disturb fellow with much too much time on his hands and trouble in his mind. I found the following to be helpful in my successful efforts to dispose of him. (1) I had very clear written guidelines that did not allow abusive or exploitive behavior on the list. Within the same document, I reserved the right to remove anyone from the list who got out of hand, to contact their ISP if they persisted in abusing their net access to the detriment of the list or its subscribers, and even to seek legal recourse if it came to that. (2) When the first threats came in, I forwarded them to his postmaster with a note explaining that I was still trying to resolve the matter cooperatively, but that I may need assistance if that failed. I also sent a copy of the list guidelines and explained how the person in question ahd habitually violated them. (3) When even toned messages asking this person to respect the list guidelines failed and the abusive beahvior escalated to a weak denial of service attack, I forwarded the evidence to the postmaster, who in turn shut down the guy's account without delay. Eventually, that senario was played out with two more ISP's before the guy went learned his lesson. (4) I configured the list to reject posts from non-subscribers and I made sure the individual in question did not subscribe. (5) I notified my own ISP of the trouble I was having with this person, just in case he tried to cause trouble with them. He did, but they were ready for him. Good luck, Todd Ourston -- Todd Ourston <2bits@wco.com> Marin County, California From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 01:43:21 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id BAA22853 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 01:34:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from proxy3.ba.best.com (proxy3.ba.best.com [206.184.139.14]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id BAA22837 for ; Fri, 9 May 1997 01:34:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shellx.best.com (shellx.best.com [206.86.0.11]) by proxy3.ba.best.com (8.8.5/8.8.3) with ESMTP id BAA14768; Fri, 9 May 1997 01:33:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cnorman@localhost) by shellx.best.com (8.8.5/8.8.3) id BAA05270; Fri, 9 May 1997 01:03:27 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 01:03:27 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199705090803.BAA05270@shellx.best.com> From: Cyndi Norman To: whitread@ozemail.com.au CC: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, cnorman@shellx.best.com In-reply-to: <3371AC1F.E09@ozemail.com.au> (message from Graeme Read & Grant Whittingham on Thu, 08 May 1997 20:34:07 +1000) Subject: Re: Threats from an unsubscribed list member Reply-to: cnorman@best.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi Graeme, I'm sorry to hear you've experienced the nasty side of the net. There are kooks and perps and just plain horrid people out there...as there are anywhere. About two years ago I had the joy of an attack on me and my list. At the time, my list was controlled manually and I had no way to block out posts (now I have subscription software and I have it set so only subscribers can post but I have no way to block anyone from subscribing...I can only try to unsub them when I get the notification). I moved cross-country and ended up being homeless for a while and under tons of stress from that and other sources. I fell behind in maintaining the list which pissed lots of people off. Some took to badmouthing me on the list itself. A group of 3 people fuelled this way beyond the expected venting. Topics such as "Immune...the list from hell" were common. These 3 took to attacking me and my subscribers. They posted about me to USENET groups. One of them posted to the list how he didn't care if I was sleeping under a bridge, I needed to "do [my] job." This went on for months...long after I unsubscribed them all and caught up on list admin. The last straw was that same one who posted that I was going to hell for being a lesbian (my girlfriend had posted in my defence earlier...his response was to call her a witch and a few other things). I don't remember everything he said but it was a long post on the same key. Some people have the hobby of disrupting lists; there's even a USENET group for this. In some cases, the disrupters are responding to the content (my list, for example, discusses lawsuits against large corporations and government coverups of chemical use). In other cases, they just do this for kicks. And sometimes the disruptor is just an indivudual with a distorted sense of things. The good news in my case was that all these people were on AOL. I forwarded select messages to AOL and got their accounts yanked. That's the last I heard from any of them. For those of you who have seen an old post of mine about some of my subscribers who sent private mail to another subscriber to the point of making her suicidal and sending her to a mental hosptial...these are the same people and this is part of the reason I didn't mess around with "tolerating" them. I would save all this creeps personal letters to you as well as any posts that you consider inappropriate. Also save any letters you send to him. If you feel he has crossed the line, send them along to his postmaster, with a note of explaination. Some ISP's respond promptly and take matters like these seriously. Others will ignore you. Most are somewhere inbetween. I would make one reply to him; tell him to stop writing you. State it clearly, politely, and with no emotion. Add that if he continues to write you you will send the letters to his postmaster. If you have no luck with the postmaster at his ISP, do a traceroute on his address and send your letters to the ISP's upstream. You can also enlist the help of your sysops if needed. But save this for serious continuous personal threats or direct action he takes to disrupt your list. Good luck. I know it's awful to get mail like this, and, no, you dont get used to it. But most kooks like this one are mostly air and no substance. Cyndi -- _______________________________________________________________________________ "There's nothing wrong with me. Maybe there's Cyndi Norman something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG) cnorman@best.com __________________________________________________ http://www.best.com/~cnorman From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 17:59:12 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA17738 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:44:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id RAA17692 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:43:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dgs.dgsys.com (dgs.dgsys.com [204.97.64.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with SMTP id JAA10840 for ; Fri, 9 May 1997 09:07:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [204.97.64.246] (hyperreal.dgsys.com) by dgs.dgsys.com (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA06963; Fri, 9 May 1997 12:06:46 -0400 Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 12:06:44 -0400 X-Sender: theseus@pop.dgsys.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: "Paul L. Moses" Subject: Re: Threats from an unsubscribed list member Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk +From: "Nathan J. Mehl" +Subject: Re: Threats from an unsubscribed list member + +In the immortal words of Graeme Read & Grant Whittingham: + +> More disturbingly he made a couple of very clear +> threats - that I had met my "Waterloo" in him and that he would do +> everything he could to oppose me, the list and have it shut down. +> You people have had much more experience in dealing with this kind of +> thing than me. What should I do about the situation? Should I be +> worried? Should I take any action? + +More than likely, you're deal with yet another of the +emotionally stunted sociopath crew that make administering any public +resource on the net such a royal pain in the ass occasionially. Let me second that thought. There are certain individuals out there who have "bad boundaries" and fail to understand that anything they can affect does not *belong* to them. I recall one individual in particular on my list who sent me detailed advice on how and whether or not to edit his post, and similar advice on how to handle a certain issue. When I said, Thanks but no thanks, please butt out, and deleted his letter, I got the old "You're a power-mad such and such, freedom of speech is being suppressed, blah blah blah...." This same individual also compiled an index to resources in my archives WITHOUT asking and again had to be told that he needed permission to do that. Again he trotted out freedom of speech, etc. If he had been a little more cooperative it would not have been a problem, but he was really obnoxious and insistent, so his attitude killed the index, basically. Of course I had to go "public" to another list with this before he would admit that he did NOT have authority to do the index without my permission. It was a big hassle and wasted a lot of my time that could have gone into making my list or website a better resource for everyone else. Worse, it makes you more apathetic and less enthusiastic about running your resource in the longer term. Paul --------- Cognition is an emotion. From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 18:05:26 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA17647 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:43:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id RAA17607 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:43:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from spot.cs.utk.edu (SPOT.CS.UTK.EDU [128.169.92.189]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id IAA08624 for ; Fri, 9 May 1997 08:53:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cs.utk.edu by spot.cs.utk.edu with ESMTP (cf v2.11c-UTK) id LAA23671; Fri, 9 May 1997 11:53:14 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705091553.LAA23671@spot.cs.utk.edu> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0gamma 1/27/96 X-URI: http://www.cs.utk.edu/~moore/ From: Keith Moore To: KnowlesB@aol.net cc: LSTOWN-L@peach.ease.lsoft.com, LSTSRV-L@peach.ease.lsoft.com, Valdis Kletnieks , Michael Ramundo , Jeff Kell , Pete Weiss , list-managers@greatcircle.com, Eric Thomas , moore@cs.utk.edu Subject: Re: rejected mail - RFC822 conflict ??? In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 07 May 1997 13:51:36 EDT." <199705071751.NAA28668@chrome.office.aol.com> X-SUBJECT-MSG-FROM: Brad Knowles Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Fri, 09 May 1997 11:53:13 -0400 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk It is a well-established principle that an SMTP server may refuse to accept mail for any operational or technical reason that makes sense to the site providing the server. Sure, you can do this. But when an AOL.COM SMTP server which is listed in the DNS as a mail exchanger for one of AOL's domains, refuses to accept a reasonable-sized message with a perfectly valid return address that is destined for a valid recipient at that domain... then AOL is not providing the level of mail service that its customers have every right to expect. Source-routed addresses are not forbidden. They're archaic, perhaps obsolete. But they're still valid, and some sites still generate them. And in my experience, source-routed addresses aren't very good indicators of spam. A lot of spam uses such addresses, but so does a lot of legitimate mail. In my experience, invalid return addresses (either invalid syntax or a nonexistent domain, in either the From header or envelope) are a FAR better indication of spam. My lists forward any message lacking a valid return address to the list maintainer. This catches a great deal of spam, and very few legitimate messages. IMHO, you have far better grounds for rejecting a message on the grounds that its return address is invalid -- especially if the envelope return address is invalid -- than for rejecting valid source-routed addresses. > Our general approach is one whereby if we can't determine that > we could bounce a message if we had to (i.e., a message comes in > for a nonexistant AOL user, or for one whose mailbox is full), then > we won't accept that message. That's a reasonable criterion. But the use of a source route doesn't mean that you can't bounce it. Especially given that 1123 clearly allows you to strip the route portion. If stripping the route from the return-path yields an invalid address, *then* it's reasonable to refuse to accept the message. Keith From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 18:12:25 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA17295 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:40:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id RAA17287 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:40:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from lists.oulu.fi (lists.oulu.fi [130.231.241.85]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id IAA11864 for ; Thu, 8 May 1997 08:35:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (mhotti@localhost) by lists.oulu.fi (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA27780; Thu, 8 May 1997 18:35:33 +0300 Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 18:35:33 +0300 (EET DST) From: Marko Hotti X-Sender: mhotti@majordomo.oulu.fi To: Graeme Read & Grant Whittingham cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Threats from an unsubscribed list member In-Reply-To: <3371AC1F.E09@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 8 May 1997, Graeme Read & Grant Whittingham wrote: > After a warning to him that was ignored and two months worth of > sarcastic comments about me posted to the list, not to mention a number > of complaints from normally quiet subscribers, I have been forced, > reluctantly, to unsubscribe him. The first person I've unsubscribed for > such a reason. I wrote a letter to my list explaining why I had done it > and, to my surprise, I have received about 12 replies thanking me and > telling me not to worry about it. My personal policy in cases like this is to send a warning to the person along with the mailing list netiquette. Do you have a netiquette or some kind of rules of posting in your mailing lists? I have found it necessary to have some kind of regulations and basic rules - even though we respect the freedom of speach. In any cases - I will NEVER wait for TWO MONTHS. If the person keeps behaving badly and does not have respect for you as the list administrator, then he will have to find another list to mess around. > is something definitely wrong with him. It was a tirade of personal > abuse accusing me of being a dictator amongst other things I'd rather > not go into here. More disturbingly he made a couple of very clear > threats - that I had met my "Waterloo" in him and that he would do > everything he could to oppose me, the list and have it shut down. Don't get intimidated by this person. Internet is full of all kinds of freaks and weird people - most of them are usually just being childish and you should get yourself above him. > thing than me. What should I do about the situation? Should I be > worried? Should I take any action? Maybe a letter to his Internet Service Provider could be a good idea. If this guy is breaking the ISP policy, they could perhaps close his account - provided that you have good evidence against him. > I admit that it has shaken me up somewhat. Your advice would be > appreciated. I have been administrating 'lists.oulu.fi' for four years now and we are running about 200 mailing lists with both Finnish and international subscribers. I don't have the time to argue with the people if they don't know how to behave themselves. Just set strict rules on your lists and make sure every new subscriber receives some kind of netiquette. If they break it, you are entitled to do whatever you feel fit. /Marko Marko Hotti System Administrator / Medical Student / Vocalist & Pianist University of Oulu Computer Services Center -- Phones: +358 40 552 8415 (mobile) +358 8 530 4268 (home) +358 8 312 7172 (otho) SnailMail: Tervontie 4 C 11, FIN-90230 OULU, Finland Public PGP encryption key available on request --> mhotti@lists.oulu.fi www.lists.oulu.fi (list services home page) www.cc.oulu.fi/~mhotti (personal) From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 18:13:49 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA16795 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:35:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id RAA16782 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:35:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from chrome.office.aol.com (chrome.office.aol.com [152.163.67.244]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id OAA03009 for ; Wed, 7 May 1997 14:49:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (brad@localhost) by chrome.office.aol.com (8.8.6.Alpha2/8.8.5/AOL-0.0.7) with ESMTP id RAA01125; Wed, 7 May 1997 17:51:37 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705072151.RAA01125@chrome.office.aol.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0gamma 1/27/96 Reply-To: KnowlesB@aol.net Organization: America Online, Inc. X-Telefacsimile: (703) 453-4013 X-PGP-Fingerprint: DA 2A 59 B1 A8 BD 4C B2 B0 41 CE 6E BD C3 15 54 X-Face: "HJz{@e(gkOmJfq8b$n:zW8Kk4*`Sz1?<#`g=5p>Wuu7DkDV`m-*p[Yb=?;w(F:L'DHA{mO]=iKKKdH)r%I7K;dvYQ{3Y6"3MW@Y*U_6?>lOw;GIva\?7579Ii|/$t"\+lE cc: LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, LSTSRV-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, Valdis Kletnieks , Michael Ramundo , Jeff Kell , Pete Weiss , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: rejected mail - RFC822 conflict ??? In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 07 May 1997 22:18:52 +0200." <199705072109.RAA01301@postman.ops.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 07 May 1997 17:51:37 -0400 From: Brad Knowles Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Your message dated: Wed, 07 May 1997 22:18:52 +0200 > Well Brad, just don't get all surprised the next time the usual AOL > bashing gang flames you :-) They are usually wrong, but this time they > will be right. Let them flame away. It has been my experience that those who flame AOL have never had to deal with a system anywhere *near* 1/10th the size of what we have, where a difference in scale typically results in a difference in kind. If they think they can do any better (yourself included), let them come here and prove it. > Come to think about it, you can actually prove the opposite. If > it is possible to severely impact AOL by sending a spam message with MAIL > FROM:<@xxx:yyy> that AOL would internally convert to MAIL FROM:, > then obviously it is possible to severely impact AOL by sending the same > spam message but with MAIL FROM:, which AOL does accept. Yes? Assuming that by "yyy" you mean a proper address with both a domain part and a local part, then no. We also refuse to accept mail from any address where the domain part does not resolve in the DNS (i.e., which we could presumably send a bounce back to, if need be). If by "yyy" you mean an address that does not have both a local part and a domain part, then no -- we refuse to accept mail from any address where the domain part does not resolve in the DNS. > Well, if the one sender, 2-3 legitimate recipient messages in question > threaten the very existence of your property, I think you need to upgrade > to less vulnerable property :-) The 2-3 legitimate messages per day you reference do not themselves pose the problem. The illegitimate messages do, and the systems that propagate the *requirement* that we must pay to accept any and all messages, even if they threaten the very existance of our system, likewise pose a problem. > This discussion is clearly not going anywhere and unless it gets > more technical quickly I suggest we all go home and forget about it. Agreed. The response I've gotten from AOL users so far has been exceedingly positive, and I regret that we (driven both by myself *and* management, it's not just been a crusade of a single person) have had to take this action to protect our system, but I believe that the majority of AOL members will appreciate this fact when they are faced with the choice of either having a system at all, or having one that refuses to accept certain types of messages. I believe that you'll find beleaguered SysAdmins the world over that will feel the same way we do, and we will not be the minority, but instead will be leading the majority down the proper path. -- Brad Knowles MIME/PGP: KnowlesB@aol.net Senior Unix Administrator From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 18:19:36 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA16856 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:36:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id RAA16838 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:36:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (mycroft.greatcircle.com [198.102.244.35]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id QAA02915 for ; Wed, 7 May 1997 16:57:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.8.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-970426) id QAA00736; Wed, 7 May 1997 16:15:31 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199705072315.QAA00736@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <1.C2CBDE8D@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Thu, 8 May 1997 0:39:33 +0100 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEARN.SUNET.SE (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 2877; Thu, 08 May 97 00:40:09 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin ERIC@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2c/1.8c) with RFC822 id 6918; Thu, 8 May 1997 00:40:09 +0200 Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 23:54:11 +0200 From: Eric Thomas Subject: Re: rejected mail - RFC822 conflict ??? To: KnowlesB@aol.net, Brad Knowles cc: LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, LSTSRV-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, Valdis Kletnieks , Michael Ramundo , Jeff Kell , Pete Weiss , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 07 May 1997 17:51:37 -0400 from Brad Knowles Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 07 May 1997 17:51:37 -0400 Brad Knowles said: > Let them flame away. It has been my experience that those who flame >AOL have never had to deal with a system anywhere *near* 1/10th the size >of what we have, where a difference in scale typically results in a >difference in kind. *sigh* All right. How much SMTP mail did AOL deliver yesterday? L-Soft made 4,143,362 deliveries yesterday (below average). I imagine that AOL delivered well over 41,433,620 SMTP messages in that time frame, or you would not have applied this remark to me. > If they think they can do any better (yourself included), let them >come here and prove it. As a matter of fact, yes, I do think I could do better than your sendmail-based setup! You would actually keep your current sendmail setup but route all your outgoing mail through a redundant LSMTP configuration (ideally a VMS cluster with shared redundant storage and automatic failover, so that you can blow up any one of the box and continue uninterrupted). Likewise, these servers could collect your incoming mail and route it to your unix systems at a pace which you would be able to control. This would allow you to operate your sendmail systems in the most efficient manner, with little or no outbound queue, a controlled number of concurrent processes, etc. So, you would be able to keep development and custom code on unix where you want it, while dramatically improving your performance and capacity. Was this a honest invitation or just a figure of speech? If you are serious, please send us your technical requirements and we will take it on from there. > The response I've gotten from AOL users so far has been exceedingly >positive, Let me get this straight. You have observed that a lot of spammers used source routes in the MAIL FROM: field. You then started rejecting this mail and your users have been very happy. I don't doubt this. What is going to happen though is that the spammers will get a clue, if not tomorrow then next week or next month, and they will stop sending mail with source routed MAIL FROM:, since it does not get there, and instead use a % hack, the hostname of some random cisco somewhere in the net (that would work wonders on your sendmail queues!), or why bother, just MAIL FROM:<>. Your users will get the spam again and you will be back to the drawing board. So, this is a temporary hack that will buy you some amount of temporary relief until the spammers get smarter. Why didn't you say so from the beginning? I still don't agree with the approach, but this at least makes some measure of sense. Definitely more than just stating that source routes are intrinsically evil and need to be exterminated. > I believe that you'll find beleaguered SysAdmins the world over that >will feel the same way we do, I am not disputing your right to refuse to process illegitimate messages. We do this as well, and frankly I don't know where you got the notion that I do not have to deal with spammers on a daily basis and have no idea how mean they can be and so on. I am only disputing the wisdom of rejecting perfectly legitimate messages (which have 2-3 recipients and are thus clearly not spam) on the basis that the MAIL FROM: field looks like what the current version of a popular spam program generates, especially since there will be a new version of the spam program soon to correct this "problem". Eric From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 18:19:58 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA17223 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:40:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id RAA17215 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:40:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sacusr.mp.usbr.gov (sacusr.mp.usbr.gov [140.214.12.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id EAA25727 for ; Thu, 8 May 1997 04:30:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: by sacto.mp.usbr.gov (MX B5.0) id 1; Thu, 8 May 1997 04:30:08 PDT Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 04:30:04 PDT From: "Henry W. Miller" To: whitread@ozemail.com.au CC: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, henrym@sacto.mp.usbr.gov Message-ID: <009B3EF0.F7A2FE78.1@sacto.mp.usbr.gov> Subject: RE: Threats from an unsubscribed list member Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > From: MX%"whitread@ozemail.com.au" 8-MAY-1997 03:51:11.01 > Subj: Threats from an unsubscribed list member Graeme, > Hi fellow list managers, > > I've been on this list for several months and appreciated the policy and > technical tips that you have all contributed. Sometimes the software > talk is a little over my head but it's only by reading this stuff that > it will start to make sense and sink in. > > I run a list for approximately 200 people. There hasn't been any of the > real drama mentioned by some of you as happening on your lists (the > death threat, legal action situations come to mind). Well, until now. > > About two months ago I subscribed someone to the list who began causing > a lot of trouble by sending multiple posts day after day, contributing > nothing to the discussion and often just seeming to indulge in self > promotion. He immediately had a large chunk of the list subscribers > offside and the complaints started rolling in. > Welcome to the world of list management. > As I started the list with a policy of open discussion and "sensible > freedom of speech" I didn't take any action, hoping he would get sick of > it and calm down. Disturbingly, he also seemed to gain a small but > vocal support group on the list. I was dealing with an incensed "silent > majority" whilst he claimed the moral high ground and pointed to his > supporters as validating anything he choose to send to the list. > That's surprising, although it's difficult to say why without more context. > After a warning to him that was ignored and two months worth of > sarcastic comments about me posted to the list, not to mention a number > of complaints from normally quiet subscribers, I have been forced, > reluctantly, to unsubscribe him. The first person I've unsubscribed for > such a reason. I wrote a letter to my list explaining why I had done it > and, to my surprise, I have received about 12 replies thanking me and > telling me not to worry about it. > I've been through a similar situation. The person in question made running the list hell for me. People were unsubscribing faster than I could keep up. And I received numerous complaints. When I yanked him, only one person, other than the person I removed cried "censorship". Another list member had a sidebar with the person crying censorship, and explained the full history of the situation, and that person calmed down. Prior to actually pulling this person from the list, we spoke with his ISP about that person's attitude, language and possible threatening language against a couple other members of the list. The ISP response was: "Well, why don't you moderate your list?". He refused to do anything. > I have had reason to doubt his emotional stability at times during the > last two months but a post I received tonight has confirmed that there > is something definitely wrong with him. It was a tirade of personal > abuse accusing me of being a dictator amongst other things I'd rather > not go into here. More disturbingly he made a couple of very clear > threats - that I had met my "Waterloo" in him and that he would do > everything he could to oppose me, the list and have it shut down. > This person made similar threats against me, saying that he could bring the list down anytime he wanted to. Well, that was 18 months ago, and the list is still running... > You people have had much more experience in dealing with this kind of > thing than me. What should I do about the situation? Should I be > worried? Should I take any action? > Most of these people are all talk, no action. But, in the off chance that you are dealing with a dangerous person, I'd first document EVERYTHING - all offensive messages, any warnings that you sent him, threats that he has made, etc. Send them first to his ISP. I'd also print copies of everything and give them to your local police, and let them handle it from there. But, I would also not let him goad you via email into replying to him. Just file his mail away. > I admit that it has shaken me up somewhat. Your advice would be > appreciated. > Good luck - he'll hopefully calm down and decide that your list is not worth the effort. I'm not making a judgement about your list, since I know nothing about it. Hopefully he'll look for a soapbox elsewhere. > Graeme Read > Sydney, Australia > > whitread@ozemail.com.au -HWM From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 18:26:29 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA16923 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:37:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id RAA16915 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:37:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE (segate.sunet.se [192.36.125.6]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id RAA08963 for ; Wed, 7 May 1997 17:53:53 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199705080053.RAA08963@honor.greatcircle.com> Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <15.80B0B335@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Thu, 8 May 1997 2:53:42 +0100 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEARN.SUNET.SE (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 3394; Thu, 08 May 97 02:54:19 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin ERIC@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2c/1.8c) with RFC822 id 8007; Thu, 8 May 1997 02:54:19 +0200 Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 01:16:19 +0200 From: Eric Thomas Subject: Re: rejected mail - RFC822 conflict ??? To: KnowlesB@aol.net, Brad Knowles cc: LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, LSTSRV-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, Valdis Kletnieks , Michael Ramundo , Jeff Kell , Pete Weiss , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 07 May 1997 19:12:52 -0400 from Brad Knowles Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 07 May 1997 19:12:52 -0400 Brad Knowles said: > I've discovered over the years that it's not recipient deliveries >that are important, since large numbers of deliveries typically get sent >to the same MXes (so what you would need to count instead would be >number of separate envelopes delivered). Well, I've discovered over the years that sendmail people invariably think in terms of the things that limit sendmail's performance. Other systems have other strengths and weaknesses, and different limitations. > We received over five million messages yesterday (and rejected >another seven million delivery attempts), to a total of almost 23 >million recipients. So, we do have more than 1/10th of your volume. >The Internet side is typically about half the total volume of the AOL >mail system as a whole. Internal mail from AOL user 1 to AOL user 2 doesn't go through SMTP and I don't see how it is relevant to this discussion, other than conveniently providing the 23M of deliveries you were missing :-) > Now, how many million messages did you receive yesterday? Receive, not that many. There are the bounces of course, but like any other large mailing list shop, we receive a lot less than we send. I imagine AOL is the opposite and receives a lot more than it sends. Anyway, I think what you really want to know is the number of SMTP transactions that we've made, regardless of the recipient count, right? I can get exact numbers if necessary, but it's usually about half the recipient count (lots of small to mid-size lists with mostly one subscriber per host), so about 2 million and change, vs your 5 million SMTP transactions. Ironically, you had a much more impressive workload when we were talking recipients :-) >> As a matter of fact, yes, I do think I could do better than your >> sendmail-based setup! > > Then put your money where your mouth is. Give up your day job and >come over here to learn how the big boys play the game. I have no intention of either giving up my day job, moving to the US or joining AOL, nor do I see any reason why this would be necessary in order to accomplish the stated goals. Nevertheless, I was making a serious business proposal. I am not in the habit of saying "I can do this!" and then explaining that I was really just kidding to try and impress people, and could everyone please forgive me. I was not kidding at all and while you obviously think that no one outside of AOL can possibly understand the challenges that AOL is facing, I have heard that tune before and there is nothing I like more than a technical challenge, so please do send me your technical requirements and we will follow up on them. And please don't tell me that this is a waste of time because I can't begin to imagine how incredibly momentous your requirements are because I'm just a little boy lost in the woods, this is simply not going to convince me. In 1987 we had a mainframe which very nearly had a terabyte of data, and that was a LOT of data back then. Yes, this and other factors did create "in kind" problems as you said, but we sat down and worked on them until they were solved. You just didn't get responsibilities in the mainframe world unless you could sit down and solve "big" problems without letting the numbers impress you out of your wits. It is by applying "big" problem skills to more affordable hardware (and not saying "It can't be done! It's way too much traffic!") that products like LSMTP are developed. I see that Matt Korn is still your VP of Operations, so it looks like I may be preaching to the choir :-) Anyway, just take a piece of desktop, write down all the numbers, however big, add all your special requirements, and let us work on them. Maybe we won't be able to meet your requirements right now, but software is made to be improved. Eric From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 18:26:34 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA16756 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:35:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id RAA16744 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:35:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE (segate.sunet.se [192.36.125.6]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id OAA00341 for ; Wed, 7 May 1997 14:06:47 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199705072106.OAA00341@honor.greatcircle.com> Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <1.26897F69@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Wed, 7 May 1997 23:09:17 +0100 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEARN.SUNET.SE (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 2171; Wed, 07 May 97 23:09:53 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin ERIC@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2c/1.8c) with RFC822 id 5507; Wed, 7 May 1997 23:09:53 +0200 Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 22:18:52 +0200 From: Eric Thomas Subject: Re: rejected mail - RFC822 conflict ??? To: KnowlesB@aol.net, Brad Knowles cc: LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, LSTSRV-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, Valdis Kletnieks , Michael Ramundo , Jeff Kell , Pete Weiss , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 07 May 1997 16:14:03 -0400 from Brad Knowles Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 07 May 1997 16:14:03 -0400 Brad Knowles said: >> All you have to do then is ignore the source route, which is allowed >> by RFC1123. I cannot think of any reason why ignoring the source route >> would not address your concerns. > > See my previous response. I don't feel I have anything more to say >on that subject than I've already said. I must be dumb then, because I don't see anything in your previous message which explains why you can't just ignore the source route per RFC1123. What I did read your previous message is that honouring the source route creates a problem for you because spammers have used it to request that bounces be sent through a system whose SMTP port is always down, which I imagine would create quite a big queue for you. Obviously if you ignore the source route this no longer happens. Equally obviously, spammers can use a MAIL FROM: address pointing to a cisco but without a source route, or they can use the percent-hack. This looks like a non-solution with the side effect of discarding legitimate mail. Where I come from, this is called a Bad Thing. > Source routes in the domain portion are inherently evil beyond >reproach, and there's nothing you can do to convince me that they should >not be rejected out of hand. Any system that actively propagates this >kind of behaviour is likewise inherently evil. Any system that passively >allows this kind of behaviour needs to be fixed. Well Brad, just don't get all surprised the next time the usual AOL bashing gang flames you :-) They are usually wrong, but this time they will be right. > However, this is a particular behaviour that has been deprecated for >at least six years (RFC 1123, section 5.2.6, as clearly pointed out by >Valdis), and it's time that it went completely away. Fine, but the part I don't really understand here is why AOL's customers should suffer because of Brad Knowles' personal crusade against source routes. Until I hear a TECHNICAL explanation for why AOL cannot comply with RFC1123 and throw away the source route part, I will remain of the technical opinion that AOL customers have nothing to gain and everything to lose from this decision. I am perfectly willing to admit that I was wrong if I hear a compelling technical argument, but right now all I've heard is that it would threaten AOL's operations for reasons that have already been stated, except I just can't seem to find or understand these reasons. Come to think about it, you can actually prove the opposite. If it is possible to severely impact AOL by sending a spam message with MAIL FROM:<@xxx:yyy> that AOL would internally convert to MAIL FROM:, then obviously it is possible to severely impact AOL by sending the same spam message but with MAIL FROM:, which AOL does accept. Yes? > Whatever the L-Soft system is that can potentially generate >source-routed envelope addresses, I would like to make sure that current >and future versions have that feature default to "off" (which appears to >already be the case, given your other comments). Yes, this has been the case for years. I doubt more than a handful of sites still have the old settings. > There is nothing in any law that requires me (or my company) to pay >to accept messages that are in a format (and/or quantity) such that they >threaten the very existance of my property (or the property of my >company). Well, if the one sender, 2-3 legitimate recipient messages in question threaten the very existence of your property, I think you need to upgrade to less vulnerable property :-) Anyway, sure, I'm happy to concede that you have the legal right to throw away any and all mail addressed to AOL, just as Compuserve's marketing department has the legal right to organize a party to rejoice over the opportunities that you have opened for them today. This discussion is clearly not going anywhere and unless it gets more technical quickly I suggest we all go home and forget about it. Eric From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 18:28:37 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA20481 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 18:18:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ginger.vnet.net (ginger.vnet.net [166.82.1.69]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id SAA20474 for ; Fri, 9 May 1997 18:18:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from katie.vnet.net (murr@katie.vnet.net [166.82.1.7]) by ginger.vnet.net (8.8.5/8.8.2) with ESMTP id VAA19626 for ; Fri, 9 May 1997 21:18:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id VAA23485 for ; Fri, 9 May 1997 21:18:50 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: katie.vnet.net: murr owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 21:18:50 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Threats from an unsubscribed list member In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, 9 May 1997, Paul L. Moses wrote: > ... When I said, Thanks but no thanks, please butt out, and deleted his > letter, I got the old "You're a power-mad such and such, freedom of > speech is being suppressed, blah blah blah...." I agree that a listowner has essentially unlimited power with regard to what traffic is acceptable on their list. You provide the resources. You decide how those resources will be used. Freedom of speech has never included unrestricted access to any forum you choose. > This same individual also compiled an index to resources in my archives > WITHOUT asking and again had to be told that he needed permission to do > that... I don't understand the conflict here. Would you please add some details? I don't see how someone compiling an "unauthorized" index of your archives could be a problem. - murr - From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 18:33:10 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA16661 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:32:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id RAA16638 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:32:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE (segate.sunet.se [192.36.125.6]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id MAA17820 for ; Wed, 7 May 1997 12:30:07 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199705071930.MAA17820@honor.greatcircle.com> Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <11.AAC94F6F@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Wed, 7 May 1997 21:32:46 +0100 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEARN.SUNET.SE (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 1391; Wed, 07 May 97 21:33:22 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin ERIC@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2c/1.8c) with RFC822 id 3901; Wed, 7 May 1997 21:33:22 +0200 Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 19:54:40 +0200 From: Eric Thomas Subject: Re: rejected mail - RFC822 conflict ??? To: LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, LSTSRV-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, KnowlesB@aol.net, Brad Knowles cc: Valdis Kletnieks , Michael Ramundo , Jeff Kell , Pete Weiss , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 07 May 1997 13:51:36 -0400 from Brad Knowles Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 07 May 1997 13:51:36 -0400 Brad Knowles said: > Specifically, source-routed mail has historically been the source of >no end of problems, and frequently abused by less savoury types in >attempts to ensure that they don't have to deal with their bounces, >etc..., we consider this an operational issue and will refuse to accept >mail with source-routed envelope addresses. All you have to do then is ignore the source route, which is allowed by RFC1123. I cannot think of any reason why ignoring the source route would not address your concerns. Incidentally, if a spammer doesn't want to deal with bounces, there is MAIL FROM:<>... Or did AOL also start rejecting such messages? This would make AOL useless for managing a mailing list, among other things. > At some point in time, the RFC 1123 "Robustness Principle" (section >1.1.2) continues the propagation of more and more bad systems, I'm sorry, but the "bad system" here is AOL's, which not only fails to observe a very reasonable RFC1123 rule (ignore the source route if you don't want to support it, we're talking about an entire line of code here), but quotes a completely irrelevant standard (RFC822) and verse to justify a RFC821-level behaviour which takes place before the RFC822 header is even transferred to AOL's system. I find it somewhat offensive that AOL then refers to the sending systems as "bad systems" that we will never be able to get rid of. These systems are doing something which used to be a mandatory procedure in order to comply with Internet standards, and which is totally harmless as you are allowed to ignore source routes completely if you do not want to implement or honour them. > Essentially as much has been observed by various Internet mail >experts, many of whom are working on drafting the upcoming standards. Brad, maybe I'm not reading this in the light in which it was meant, but there are probably more Internet mail experts among the people you are sending this message to than in the group you mentioned, and as you know technical people tend to be independent thinkers. This isn't to say that the people on the DRUMS group aren't mail experts, but DRUMS doesn't have a monopoly on mail experts, and I'm sure you realize that many people signed off after getting tired of receiving 100-150 DRUMS messages a day with Dan Bernstein flame wars and other kindergarten arguments. It also doesn't make much sense to ask people to submit to the wisdom of a task force working on new Internet drafts which may or may not become Internet standards in a couple years, let alone industry standards, when at the same time you refuse to submit to the wisdom of existing Internet standards with their existing user base. Again I am sorry if I took this in the wrong light, but this is just the impression that I got from your message, whether it was meant or not. > I'd like to see this default changed in upcoming releases of >ListServ, so that in the future, email with source-routed envelope >addresses will not be generated unless you explicitly configure it to do >so. LISTSERV does not generate source routes, nor has it ever done that. Even back in 1986, LISTSERV had a strong no-source-routes stance. However, if presented with a source route it does ignore it gracefully, as you would expect. The source routes come from LMail, a MTA for VM (also from L-Soft) which can be configured to implement the original RFC821 reverse path behaviour where you insert source routes in the MAIL FROM: address (at no point is a source route added to the RFC822 header). Nowadays the default setting is not to generate source routes, but this has not always been the case and some sites may still have that option enabled in their configuration file, or may have enabled it for their own reasons. They should probably change it (change 'SOURCE_ROUTES = 1' to 'SOURCE_ROUTES = 0' in LOCAL SYSVARS), but AOL should definitely not reject MAIL FROM:<@XYZ.EDU:JOE@XYZ.EDU> when it does accept MAIL FROM:. Even setting aside the fact that the standards require AOL to accept this syntax, it just does not make any technical sense to reject it, and it leads to the loss of legitimate mail for AOL's customers. Eric From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 18:33:40 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA16904 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:36:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id RAA16894 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:36:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (mycroft.greatcircle.com [198.102.244.35]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id QAA02948 for ; Wed, 7 May 1997 16:58:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from chrome.office.aol.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.8.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-970426) id QAA00696; Wed, 7 May 1997 16:14:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (brad@localhost) by chrome.office.aol.com (8.8.6.Beta1/8.8.5/AOL-0.0.7) with ESMTP id TAA01974; Wed, 7 May 1997 19:12:53 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705072312.TAA01974@chrome.office.aol.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0gamma 1/27/96 Reply-To: KnowlesB@aol.net Organization: America Online, Inc. X-Telefacsimile: (703) 453-4013 X-PGP-Fingerprint: DA 2A 59 B1 A8 BD 4C B2 B0 41 CE 6E BD C3 15 54 X-Face: "HJz{@e(gkOmJfq8b$n:zW8Kk4*`Sz1?<#`g=5p>Wuu7DkDV`m-*p[Yb=?;w(F:L'DHA{mO]=iKKKdH)r%I7K;dvYQ{3Y6"3MW@Y*U_6?>lOw;GIva\?7579Ii|/$t"\+lE cc: LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, LSTSRV-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, Valdis Kletnieks , Michael Ramundo , Jeff Kell , Pete Weiss , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: rejected mail - RFC822 conflict ??? In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 07 May 1997 23:54:11 +0200." <199705072239.SAA08451@postman.ops.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 07 May 1997 19:12:52 -0400 From: Brad Knowles Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Your message dated: Wed, 07 May 1997 23:54:11 +0200 > *sigh* All right. How much SMTP mail did AOL deliver yesterday? L-Soft > made 4,143,362 deliveries yesterday (below average). I imagine that AOL > delivered well over 41,433,620 SMTP messages in that time frame, or you > would not have applied this remark to me. I've discovered over the years that it's not recipient deliveries that are important, since large numbers of deliveries typically get sent to the same MXes (so what you would need to count instead would be number of separate envelopes delivered). Instead, what separates the wheat from the chaff is the total number of messages *received*, or for which delivery attempts were made. We received over five million messages yesterday (and rejected another seven million delivery attempts), to a total of almost 23 million recipients. The Internet side is typically about half the total volume of the AOL mail system as a whole. If you want to count individual recipients, then guess what -- that's about 45 million, which is even slightly higher than the number you'd quoted. Now, how many million messages did you receive yesterday? > As a matter of fact, yes, I do think I could do better than your > sendmail-based setup! Then put your money where your mouth is. Give up your day job and come over here to learn how the big boys play the game. Until you think in terms like terabyte and petabyte the way everyone else talks about kilobytes and megabytes, you won't be thinking on the right kind of scale as to where we are today, much less where we have to plan to be tomorrow. I know that sounds crass, and in a way it's supposed to. However, it's been my experience that *no* one has been prepared for the scale of the operation we run here, the first day they walk in the door (heck, even three to six months later). Until you can think in the right scale, and invent solutions out of wholecloth for the unique types of problems that presents, there are just some things you can't talk intelligently about. > What is > going to happen though is that the spammers will get a clue, if not > tomorrow then next week or next month, and they will stop sending mail > with source routed MAIL FROM:, since it does not get there, and instead > use a % hack, the hostname of some random cisco somewhere in the net > (that would work wonders on your sendmail queues!), or why bother, just > MAIL FROM:<>. If we see an excessive number of messages that threaten the AOL mail system using the "% hack", then we'll turn that off too. I'd really hate to have to do it (since I've used that myself to help debug mail problems in the past), but we'll do what we have to do. As for null envelope senders, that actually doesn't do much to threaten the AOL mail system, since we'd never attempt to generate a bounce in that case anyway. > I still don't agree with the approach, but > this at least makes some measure of sense. Definitely more than just > stating that source routes are intrinsically evil and need to be > exterminated. You obviously don't understand. This is not a discussion about how things should be done, it's a simple statement of fact about how the AOL mail system works. Period. If you want to debate the technical issues with me in private, I'll be willing to discuss them so long as there appears to be a valid reason for continuing to do so. > We do this as well, and frankly I don't know where you got the notion > that I do not have to deal with spammers on a daily basis and have no > idea how mean they can be and so on. I know quite well that you have to deal with junkmailers on a daily basis, and from what I've seen, you've done a pretty good job. However, no other site on the *planet* has to deal with them on the scale that we do. This is a case where a difference in size has created a difference in kind. > I am only disputing the wisdom of > rejecting perfectly legitimate messages (which have 2-3 recipients and > are thus clearly not spam) on the basis that the MAIL FROM: field looks > like what the current version of a popular spam program generates, > especially since there will be a new version of the spam program soon to > correct this "problem". Unfortunately, we are required by law to take whatever technical means are possible to prevent "abuse" of our systems, and only when all possible avenues of technical methods are exhausted, will the courts (or lawmakers) then listen to our complaints. Such is the legal system we have to live with. -- Brad Knowles MIME/PGP: KnowlesB@aol.net Senior Unix Administrator From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 18:33:46 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA17352 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:41:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id RAA17342 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:41:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from colossus.arl.mil (colossus.arl.mil [131.218.204.98]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id NAA07026 for ; Thu, 8 May 1997 13:04:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [131.218.204.98] by colossus.arl.mil with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 1.1.2); Thu, 8 May 1997 16:09:26 +0000 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199705060646.BAA04282@bonkers.taronga.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Organization: Little to None X-Mailer: Eudora 3.0 for Cray Y-MP To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Vince Sabio Subject: Re: The "Duh!" Awards Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 16:09:26 +0000 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk ** Sometime around 01:46 -0500 5/6/97, Stephanie da Silva said: >CL: Please unsubscribe me from your mailing list. > >Me: Before I can do this, you'll need to tell me the name of the list. > >CL: I don't know.... That's a tough act to follow. I've got a *few* favorites, but this one was actually starting to get me annoyed: CL: I'm trying to unsubscribe from your mailing list, but your instructions do not work. Me: Huh. They seem to be working for most everyone else who has unsubscribed recently. What seems to be thy problem? CL: It says there's no such list. Me: You are probably typing something wrong. Could you please send me the EXACT command that you are sending to the server? (Since this is a PG-13 list, I'll delete all expletives from the rest of her correspondence; they really add nothing, anyway.) CL: I KNOW HOW TO USE A LISTSERVE! (sic) Just take me off your list! It's not my fault that your instructions are wrong! Me: The instructions seem to be working just fine for everyone else; plus, it's not a ListServ, it's a ListProc. Now, please send me the EXACT command that you are sending to the server. CL: I don't have to put up with being belittled by you!! WHY CAN'T YOU JUST TAKE ME OFF THE LIST? Me: Several reasons: (1) I'm not your mommy, (2) since you are writing to me from [name of college], I assume that you are a big girl now, and are old enough to be able to learn how to do this correctly, (3) you apparently got yourself ON TO the list by yourself, you theoretically should be able to get yourself OFF the list in much the same manner, (4) in the unlikely event that there really IS a problem with the server, I probably should know about it, and (5) if I give you a fish, I feed you for a day (insert rest of quote). Now, just ***send me the command that you are sending to the server*** or you will simply have to figure it all out on your own. I'm trying to help you; work with me here, okay? [at this point, we pause to note that the command, as included in the Welcome message in TWO places, and in the trailer of every list mailing, is simply "unsubscribe humornet".] CL: I'M SENDING EXACTLY WHAT YOU PUT IN THE INSTRUCTIONS, but it isn't working. So just take me off your list! Me: Look, I'm only going to ask this ONE more time: Send me the exact command that you are sending to the server. No rants. No complaints. Just send me the command. Is that too much to ask? CL: unsubscribe humornet, AND DON'T EVER WRITE BACK TO ME AGAIN! Me: Okay, here's your problem: You placed a comma after the word "humornet"; you'll note from the instructions that there is no comma there. Moreover, if you read the instructions REEEEALLY carefully, you also note that you are not supposed to include your name in an unsubscribe request -- though the server *usually* won't care if you do. So, the command should look like this: unsubscribe humornet That's it. Good luck. May the force be with you. And thank you for being with us. unsubscribe humournet Me: I'm sorry, but unless you BCCed that request to the server, you sent it to the wrong place. You were apparently sending it to the right address earlier; why did you change addresses? Moreover, why did you change the spelling of the list name? All you needed to do was remove the comma (you did that) and your name (you didn't do that), and not change anything else (you changed stuff) and be sure to send it to the same address you have been using right along (you changed the address). Now, it's really not all that difficult; just send the command: unsubscribe humornet ... to the server at . Just those two words, with the spelling as shown above, to the correct address, with no commas, and no names. You can do it; I *know* you can. CL: I SENT IT TO THE RIGHT ADDRESS, YOUR SERVER SENT IT TO THE WRONG PLACE! Me: Just ... follow ... the ... instructions. That's it. Don't get creative, don't add new stuff, don't change addresses. Just follow the instructions. ... Several minutes later, a received the unsub confirmation from the ListProc. I was tempted to copy the message back to her (of course, she'd already receive *one* copy) with a heartfelt note of congratulations, but I thought better of it. Now, I'd bet that most listmoms would have given up long ago and just unsubbed her. Typically, *I* would have, too -- all I really ask is that the person at least TRIES to subscribe/unsubscribe himself. But when someone starts off by saying that the "instructions don't work," or "the server does not work," etc., I turn into the BLOFH (bastard list owner from hell ), and make it my mission to help this poor CluelessIdiot(tm) see the light. I doubt, in most of these cases, that they ever see anything other than a butthead list owner. But it sure helps *me* sleep at night. :-) - Vince S. wavelet@colossus.arl.mil HumourNet: Anyone w/o a sense of humor is at the mercy of the rest of us. From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri May 9 18:39:13 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA16726 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:34:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) id RAA16716 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 9 May 1997 17:34:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from chrome.office.aol.com (chrome.office.aol.com [152.163.67.244]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970427-1) with ESMTP id NAA23576 for ; Wed, 7 May 1997 13:12:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (brad@localhost) by chrome.office.aol.com (8.8.6.Alpha2/8.8.5/AOL-0.0.7) with ESMTP id QAA29768; Wed, 7 May 1997 16:14:04 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705072014.QAA29768@chrome.office.aol.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0gamma 1/27/96 Reply-To: KnowlesB@aol.net Organization: America Online, Inc. X-Telefacsimile: (703) 453-4013 X-PGP-Fingerprint: DA 2A 59 B1 A8 BD 4C B2 B0 41 CE 6E BD C3 15 54 X-Face: "HJz{@e(gkOmJfq8b$n:zW8Kk4*`Sz1?<#`g=5p>Wuu7DkDV`m-*p[Yb=?;w(F:L'DHA{mO]=iKKKdH)r%I7K;dvYQ{3Y6"3MW@Y*U_6?>lOw;GIva\?7579Ii|/$t"\+lE cc: LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, LSTSRV-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM, Valdis Kletnieks , Michael Ramundo , Jeff Kell , Pete Weiss , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: rejected mail - RFC822 conflict ??? In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 07 May 1997 19:54:40 +0200." <199705071932.PAA22699@postman.ops.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 07 May 1997 16:14:03 -0400 From: Brad Knowles Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Your message dated: Wed, 07 May 1997 19:54:40 +0200 > All you have to do then is ignore the source route, which is allowed by > RFC1123. I cannot think of any reason why ignoring the source route would > not address your concerns. See my previous response. I don't feel I have anything more to say on that subject than I've already said. > Incidentally, if a spammer doesn't want to > deal with bounces, there is MAIL FROM:<>... Or did AOL also start > rejecting such messages? This would make AOL useless for managing a > mailing list, among other things. We continue to be compliant with RFC 1123, section 5.2.9. That will not change. In fact, I recently pointed out the necessity to comply with this particular part of RFC 1123 to a security expert who is in the process of making enhancements to "smap", to allow it to make more intelligent decisions about what kind of messages to accept or refuse (dealing with all the same issues I've already solved here at AOL with various sendmail rewrite rules, but instead dealing with them in another product). Source routes in the domain portion are inherently evil beyond reproach, and there's nothing you can do to convince me that they should not be rejected out of hand. Any system that actively propagates this kind of behaviour is likewise inherently evil. Any system that passively allows this kind of behaviour needs to be fixed. > > Essentially as much has been observed by various Internet mail > >experts, many of whom are working on drafting the upcoming standards. > > Brad, maybe I'm not reading this in the light in which it was meant, but > there are probably more Internet mail experts among the people you are > sending this message to than in the group you mentioned, and as you know > technical people tend to be independent thinkers. There are "Internet mail experts" the world over, and as you observe elsewhere in your own message, some of them have some pretty bizarre ideas of what should and should not be done. In fact, I'm certain that many feel this way about me. So be it. However, this is a particular behaviour that has been deprecated for at least six years (RFC 1123, section 5.2.6, as clearly pointed out by Valdis), and it's time that it went completely away. I can't think of