On Mon, 2006-03-13 at 19:59 +0000, David Fletcher wrote: > On Monday 13 Mar 2006 18:24, Mike McCarty wrote: > > David Fletcher wrote: > > > > > > I don't know anything about running a list server, so this might be a > > > daft idea, but would it be possible to get the server to strip, say, six > > > characters from in front of or after the '@' character in the reply-to > > > address before accepting postings? Then we could all add the appropriate > > > > Please, not before. That is a major pain in the lower back for > > admins. > > > > Mike > > -- > > Thinking about this some more, if I understand it properly, the cretin is > exploiting the reply-to email address in every message after it has left the > list. So there would be no point in the list subscribers doing anything to > invalidate their own addresses before sending postings to the list. > > To my mind, what would do the job would be the addition of some characters > somewhere in the subscriber's email reply-to address before sending postings > back out to the list of members. That would only need to be done once per > posting, so it would be very easy on computing resources if it were possible. > > For instance, if my email address could be changed from fc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx to > fc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx before sending out postings to the subscribers there > would be virtually no chance of it being a valid email address, so the > cretin's auto reply would not be able to spam the members. > > But on the odd occasions that members need to make contact off list, the > pattern would be obvious. So pretty soon the cretin would stop being a bloody > nuisance to everybody. ---- this happens to be just one of the very many lists on redhat.com and I don't see the list admins asking for suggestions on how to handle this. So without offering to write the program necessary for redhat as a supplement to their list management software, making suggestions about what 'they' should do is strictly engaging in a self-indulgent activity. Unless of course, you create a bugzilla entry in the mailman package as an RFE ;-) My thinking is that unless you are running lists yourself and experiencing this problem, it's not too likely to get much traction. Craig
