Subject: RE: f***ing filter!

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 08:38:09 -0700

What exactly caused the attached message to be rejected "rejected by
content filter" ? The rejection message says:

> Your message was received by [email-masked].
> 
> The content of your message looks like it may be an elist server
command.
> Commands must be sent to the "-request" address for the elist of
interest.
> For example, if you are interested in an elist called:
> 
>         ietf-nomcom
> 
> you must send your command to:
> 
>         [email-masked]

Who is managing that thing? 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christian Huitema
> Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 8:19 AM
> To: 'Randy Bush'; Phil Roberts
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: registering vs. attending
> 
> > > There were a couple of folks who had attended but not registered
and
> who
> > > volunteered to serve.  I took the decision not to allow
> > > this, broadly interpreting attendance to include registration.
> > > Registration is what is being checked to determine whether the
> > > volunteers are qualified.
> >
> > i agree with your conclusion but not your reasoning.  i just don't
> > think we want cheaters on the nomcom.
> 
> Just for information, are we in the presence of people "forgetting to
> pay", or in the presence of some kind of administrative snafu?
> 
> -- Christian Huitema

---

From: James M Galvin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 12:39:23 -0400 (EDT)

Christian,

You could have replied to the From: address in the message you received
and then you would have been in direct contact with the manager, who
would have answered your question.  However, since it's my system being
used I can explain what happened.

It turns out the issue is somewhat subtle.  The message you forwarded to
this list does not actually show the problem.  The message as received
by the server had the following content:

    > > There were a couple of folks who had attended but not registered and
    w-h-o
    > think we want cheaters on the nomcom.

Note that I put "w-h-o" above but in your message the "who" appeared on
a line by itself.

The filter that checks for subscription commands and the many variations
of the them also checks for certain other server commands, e.g., "help"
and "who".  Its check for those commands is extremely limited.  In fact,
it only looks for those words appearing on a line by themselves.  Well,
guess what?  In the message you sent that was exactly the case.  See
above.

The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the filter does not pay
attention to excerpted text, i.e., all the lines in your message that
begin with ">" are ignored.  Thus, the "who" looked even more like a
command.

Your message is one of the most extreme examples of an edge condition in
this filter that I've seen in a long time.

Jim