[Marc Merlin, still amazed at how dumb autoresponders can be]
> Out of sheer curiosity, how the hell is this possible?
>
> Never mind the autoresponder ignores the "Precedence: bulk", doesn't
> answer to either the envelope or header from (well, I do mind, but
> let's put that aside). How does an autoresponder get an address from
> To and send the answer there? Or did it grab it from a Cc?
Your guess is as good as mine.
> Have other people seen this before?
Yep, but not usually on lists frequented by people who know a thing
about email (like this one). I most often see it on a list frequented
by university students arranging skiing or hiking trips for the weekend,
ie. a few hardcore geeks and a lot of 19-year-old granolas who wouldn't
know an MTA from a hole in the ground. Recently a virus was sent to
that list; among the flurry of replies was one from an autoresponding
virus-checker. Something like this happened:
* host A.foo.com, presumably x@???'s desktop PC, infected by virus
* virus on A gets address of mailing list (address book, IE
cache, whatever) and sends itself to the list
* MLM obediently sends the virus on to all subscribers, including
B@???
* MTA for bar.net intercepts virus, and sends a warning *to the
list* saying "we caught a virus for you". Since the list
address was in the "To" header, this autoresponder assumed
it was catching a virus destined for the list, and was doing
the list a favour by telling it of the blocked virus.
ARGHHHH!! When I howled at postmaster@???, he thought his
autoresponder was *perfectly reasonable*!! I calmed down and explained
it to him again, and I think he understood the problem then.
Some months ago, I added an entry to the Mailman FAQ wizard on this:
http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq03.006.htp
Greg
--
Greg Ward - software developer gward@???
MEMS Exchange http://www.mems-exchange.org
