In message <Pine.LNX.4.62.0512281300070.3928@???>, Alan
J. Flavell <a.flavell@???> writes
>It appears that this chap takes the view that there can be no
>exceptions; but he offers no viable way of dealing with forwarded
>addresses nor with vacation responses. While I have a great deal of
>sympathy with the rest of what he says, I'm at a loss to know how to
>deal with this aspect.
Well, you could simply disable all automated vacation response systems
for your users...
In this day and age, very few people indeed are away from their email
for more than a couple of days at a time, so there is seldom a real need
for such systems. After a few moans, the facility would not be missed.
I get dozens of responses a day of this type (because spammers forge my
identity) -- they are second only to challenge-response as a source of
back-scattered annoyance. I trivially reject the rubbish that has a null
sender [no stats available on how many that might be], but I currently
receive the rest -- and most of these turn out to contain detailed
personal information (or company secrets about hierarchies, co-workers
etc) that the security team would probably despair of, should they
become aware of the information leakage and the potential for social
engineering :( [see Mitnick, Art of Deception, for the risks]
Anyway, when was the last time you changed your plans because of a
vacation message that you received ?
Removing vacation message supporting features would simplify Exim's code
base :) remove a source of loops and reduce the documentation set.
Sounds like a win to me!
- --
richard Richard Clayton
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin 11 Nov 1755
