Subject: R;7"LlOBS& (fwd)

From: Bret Busby <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 17:34:25 +0800 (WST)

What is going on with these messages?

Despite a response that was posted to an earlier query that I posted to 
the list about these messages, the header below clearly shows that the 
message was sent by the list administrator.

If the list administrator monitors what goes on on this list, can the 
list administrator please advise as to what is happening with these 
messages that show as having been sent by the list administrator?

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Douglas Adams, 1988
....................................................

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 11:25:01 +0800
Sender: [email-masked]
From: [email-masked]
To: Pine Discussion Forum <[email-masked]>
Subject: R;7"LlOBS&

                              CORRUPTED MESSAGE

This is the Courier Mail Server 0.37 on wasp.net.au.

I received the following message for delivery to your address.  Unfortunately,
the sender's mail software did not properly format the following message
according to Internet mail formatting protocols, and I can only deliver mail
which has been properly formatted according to Internet standards.  Instead
of returning the following message as undeliverable, it is saved, in its
original form, in the following attachment, which you can open with any
editor or word processor.

Please notify the original sender that their message was not properly
formatted by their mail software.  The specific mail protocol error in the
original message is as follows:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The mail headers in the following message contain 8-bit text, which is
prohibited by RFC 2047.

See <URL:ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2047.txt> for more information.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: Jacob Morzinski <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 10:21:35 -0400 (EDT)

> What is going on with these messages?

Read the error message.
Read the error message.
Read the error message.
Read the error message.

Sheesh.

You were sent a message that does not conform to the mail RFCs, and
the error message tells you this.

Is it such a stretch to realize that
 1) the reason you were sent this message is that the pine-info list
     sent it to you,
  and
 2) the reason the pine-info list sent it to you is that *someone*
     (we don't know who) sent it to the pine-info list?

If you want to track down the person who sent it to the pine-info list
and chastise them, please do so.  None of us like spam, and we'd all
cheer your efforts.  Most of us try to cope with spam just by ignoring
it, though.

 -Jacob Morzinski

---

From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 16:52:23 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time)

> cheer your efforts.  Most of us try to cope with spam just by ignoring

But, it makes much more sense (in terms of resources) for the
list management software to try to do spam detection *once*
rather than each user on the list having to do spam detection.
Nowadays there are many good tools for spam detection, for
example SpamAssassin. It would involve some moderation of the
list, but I think it's worth it.

Nancy
 updating my "Reverse Spam Filtering" page now

-- 
Nancy McGough
Infinite Ink
<http://www.ii.com/>
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 For information about this mailing list, and its archives, see: 
 http://www.washington.edu/pine/pine-info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: Bret Busby <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 11:40:54 +0800 (WST)

On Wed, 28 Aug 2002, Jacob Morzinski wrote:

> Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 10:21:35 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Jacob Morzinski <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Re: R;7"LlOBS& (fwd)
> 

Your belligenernce is not conducive to the image of the MIT.

This appears to be an issue not of spam (what's spam got to do with the 
message, anyway?), but of the list administrator (NOTE: the message that 
was non-compliant, shows as gaving been sent by the LIST ADMINISTRATOR!) 
sending messages with non-standard headers (what email application is 
the list adminsitrator using, that sends non-standard headers? Is it 
pine?), and, then, the mailing list application (which mailing list 
application is used - is it majordomo?) compunding the problem, by 
both accepting, and, then, distributing, messages that have non-standrad 
headers.

Given that this is a mailing list that is concerned with an email 
application, it is of some concern, that the list administrator, and, 
the mailing list application, are both sending messages that are of a 
non-standard format.

This, as far as I can see, has nothing to do with spam, but, with the 
issues stated in the last previous paragraph.

That is a matter of great concern.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

---

From: Beartooth <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 10:52:03 -0400 (EDT)

> Your belligenernce is not conducive to the image of the MIT.

	It was deserved -- and shared.
> That is a matter of great concern.

	Maybe -- between you and the administrator; for the rest of
us, it's spam. Please desist from posting it.
-- 
Beartooth the Stubborn <karhunhammas (at) lserv.com>
Double retiree & Neo-Redneck (PhD, NRA, etc.)
Linux hatchling w/ RH 7.2, YDL 2.2, & OSX; Pine 4.43;
Opera 6.02, Galeon 1.2.5, Mozilla 1.0; Pan 0.11.2

---

From: Josh Larios <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 10:29:19 -0700 (PDT)

> was non-compliant, shows as gaving been sent by the LIST ADMINISTRATOR!)

The message in question has these lines right above the lines you're
reading as saying the list administrator personally sent the message:

That's a pretty clear sign that the list administrator did not personally
sit down and compose that message--someone at 61.149.16.188 did. That IP
belongs to the CHINANET Beijing province network. I'm pretty sure the
list administrator isn't working from there.

The reasason the list admin address shows up in the From and Sender
headers is that the original message had no such headers, and the smtp
server or mailing list software filled them in.

Agreed, listproc and sendmail probably shouldn't be accepting messages
with 8-bit characters in the subject lines. But this isn't a problem with
the list administrator, as you claim.

--
Josh Larios                   Computing & Communications Client Services
University of Washington      Box 352830, Mary Gates Hall 011A
[email-masked]   Seattle, WA 98195-2830