From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Chris Faylor To: Jason Molenda Cc: overseers@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: Bypassing the mailing list name restriction Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 06:08:00 -0000 Message-id: <20000821231731.A16521@cygnus.com> References: <20000821180216.A14361@cygnus.com> <20000821154455.A1040@shell17.ba.best.com> X-SW-Source: 2000/msg00987.html On Mon, Aug 21, 2000 at 03:44:56PM -0700, Jason Molenda wrote: >On Mon, Aug 21, 2000 at 06:02:16PM -0400, Chris Faylor wrote: > >> To: "cygwin@sourceware.cygnus.com" > >Weird. The whole point of the To/Cc checks are that spammers won't >customize the headers for each mail note - they just throw out >static copies of their adverts. This person is (obviously) sending >out dynamic spam mail, but is not bothering to put the list name >in the To: header. Unless his goal is to trick people in to replying >to the @hotpop.com addr, I don't see what the point is. (You can >probably get this acct shut down if hotpop.com is a free e-mail >site, but there's nothing to stop him for opening another for his >next spam) This isn't a spammer. It's actually a user. He is using hotpop.com to forward email to the cygwin mailing list because his real ISP is blocked. He probably stumbled across this usage as a way around his problem but it is causing problems for other mailing list users. I'm going to speak to him about his use of cygwin@hotpop.com causing problems for other users of the mailing list but I thought I should also close this hole even if it is very unlikely that an actual spammer will ever use it. >> I'd like to modify check-for-listname.sh so that the above trick no longer >> works. Are there any objections to my doing this? > >FWIW, I'd be concerned about variations that some MUAs will use. >A quick browse of my mailbox shoes that the three most common are > > {To|Cc}: "ENGLISH_NAME" > {To|Cc}: ENGLISH_NAME > {To|Cc}: ADDR > >With more addresses possible in each case, separated by commas. >Even with these variations, you can't just make the grep look for >the "<" and ">" chars or it'll lose on the third variation. And >I'd be surprised if these are the only styles of addresses that >are being generated by all the odd software out there... I'm looking into parsing the To: address via some other means. I thought that procmail's "formail" program would do the right thing but it doesn't break apart the addresses correctly. I know that parsing this kind of address is tricky so I'll be werry werry careful. cgf From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Chris Faylor To: Jason Molenda Cc: overseers@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: Bypassing the mailing list name restriction Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 20:18:00 -0000 Message-ID: <20000821231731.A16521@cygnus.com> References: <20000821180216.A14361@cygnus.com> <20000821154455.A1040@shell17.ba.best.com> X-SW-Source: 2000-q3/msg00278.html Message-ID: <20000821201800.BkPC2NxrGGlh6MsRt8nV_qrqidjN5mp1M-dH6Wc0Xkk@z> On Mon, Aug 21, 2000 at 03:44:56PM -0700, Jason Molenda wrote: >On Mon, Aug 21, 2000 at 06:02:16PM -0400, Chris Faylor wrote: > >> To: "cygwin@sourceware.cygnus.com" > >Weird. The whole point of the To/Cc checks are that spammers won't >customize the headers for each mail note - they just throw out >static copies of their adverts. This person is (obviously) sending >out dynamic spam mail, but is not bothering to put the list name >in the To: header. Unless his goal is to trick people in to replying >to the @hotpop.com addr, I don't see what the point is. (You can >probably get this acct shut down if hotpop.com is a free e-mail >site, but there's nothing to stop him for opening another for his >next spam) This isn't a spammer. It's actually a user. He is using hotpop.com to forward email to the cygwin mailing list because his real ISP is blocked. He probably stumbled across this usage as a way around his problem but it is causing problems for other mailing list users. I'm going to speak to him about his use of cygwin@hotpop.com causing problems for other users of the mailing list but I thought I should also close this hole even if it is very unlikely that an actual spammer will ever use it. >> I'd like to modify check-for-listname.sh so that the above trick no longer >> works. Are there any objections to my doing this? > >FWIW, I'd be concerned about variations that some MUAs will use. >A quick browse of my mailbox shoes that the three most common are > > {To|Cc}: "ENGLISH_NAME" > {To|Cc}: ENGLISH_NAME > {To|Cc}: ADDR > >With more addresses possible in each case, separated by commas. >Even with these variations, you can't just make the grep look for >the "<" and ">" chars or it'll lose on the third variation. And >I'd be surprised if these are the only styles of addresses that >are being generated by all the odd software out there... I'm looking into parsing the To: address via some other means. I thought that procmail's "formail" program would do the right thing but it doesn't break apart the addresses correctly. I know that parsing this kind of address is tricky so I'll be werry werry careful. cgf