Subject: Re: too many "Out of Office AutoReply"

From: A James Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 18:44:41 +0100 (BST)

Is it me, or should these "Autoresponders" not be sending to a mailing
list... I always thought that it was "slapped wrists" for writing a
vacation type program that replied to a message like this?

I notice also that ALL of the autoresponder messages come from "Internet
Mail Service" Microsoft software.... No surprises there then!

Actually most of them are in a funny character set "windows-1252" or
somthing... go on, i need a laugh, what is it?

A. James Lewis ([email-masked])
Open Source Specialists  http://www.entora.co.uk/
Tel: +44 (0)701 0723686  Fax: +44 (0)870 3214368

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 14:14:15 -0400

> Mail Service" Microsoft software.... No surprises there then!

I used to send a canned note to people who did that, explaining that it
was poor netiquette, but gave up when I noticed that:

(a) 99% of the offenders were using that software
(b) I have *yet* to find somebody who can tell me how to configure said
software to not reply to mail that comes from owner-* or *-request addresses.

If somebody has a "choose this tab, select that, type this" cookbook, please
let me know....
-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech

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From: "Michael H. Warfield" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 15:13:25 -0400

> If somebody has a "choose this tab, select that, type this" cookbook, please

	I went round and round with our people about this (we have over
70 lists with over 50,000 subscribers at Internet Security Systems).
Someone was finally able to tell me that recent versions of Exchange
will not autorespond to messages with Precedence set to "bulk" but will
autorespond to messages with no Precedence setting or with a Precedence
setting of "list".  They are keying on the string, not the numeric
value.  All of our list messages now go out with the "Precedence: bulk"
header to eliminate that much.

	Of the remainder (older versions of Outlook and Exchange), many
violate SEVERAL rules of autoresponders such as never autoresponding
to an autoresponder an responding more that once to a given address.
If you think about it, this is a DoS attack waiting to happen.  Just get
a few of these and spoof messages them from each of them.  :-)  Fundamentally
evil and fundamentally SIMPLE.  And, yes, I know of one individual who
actually got fed up with two particular others and did that to them.  They
had been warned and they set up the autoresponders anyway.  They came
back to over 8,000 messages and mailboxes overlimit.  They blamed each other,
of course, and they were right...  Just for the wrong reasons.  :-)
And, no, it wasn't me that done that.

	Recent versions of Outlook, Outlook Express, and Exchange avoid
both of those damaging misbehaviors as well, so it's only chumps^H^H^H^H^H^H
victims^H^H^H^H^H^H^Husers with software that is overdue for an update.

	Mike
-- 
 Michael H. Warfield    |  (770) 985-6132   |  [email-masked]
  (The Mad Wizard)      |  (678) 463-0932   |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
  NIC whois:  MHW9      |  An optimist believes we live in the best of all
 PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471    |  possible worlds.  A pessimist is sure of it!

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 16:01:46 -0400

> If somebody has a "choose this tab, select that, type this" cookbook, please

and me.  or post it to the list.  that way I can add it to the canned
text that I send out whenever I get one of those stupid vacation messages.

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From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 16:25:07 +0100 (BST)

> somthing... go on, i need a laugh, what is it?

I generally respond to the autoresponder and cc postmaster with
something along the lines of the message below with a copy of their
message. Apparently the Microsoft stuff is quite hard to configure
well.

(The other occasional culprit is Lotus Notes.)

I've stopped seeing autorepsonses from some organisations... YMMV.

L.

Hello.

I sent mail to a mailing list. That mail was not sent To: or Cc:
you. You only received the mail because you are also subscribed to that 
mailing list. The mailing list sent its copy of my mail to you as
Precedence: bulk, clearly indicating that (along with the lack
of your email address in the To: and Cc: fields) it was not intended 
for your personal attention. Until I received your autoreply, I did
not even know of your existence.

You appear to be using misconfigured autoreply software. This software
is typically from Microsoft, judging from the 'Internet Mail Service'
line in your headers.

Anyone posting to any mailing list that you are subscribed to
will have received a similar autoreply message.
They will not have heard of you either, and your introduction to 
them is an irritant. That's _everyone_ on _every_ mailing list
that you are subscribed to. Think of all of those autoreply messages
you are sending out!

Please fix your autoreply, and if you can't fix it, refrain
from using it. I'm alerting your postmaster, who I hope is clued
enough to be able to help you out.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 12:25:03 -0400

> message. Apparently the Microsoft stuff is quite hard to configure

To the point that I've *yet* to find somebody who can tell me how to
do it for the offending versions of 'Internet Mail Service'.

Or is it permanently broken, not configurable, and the organizations
afflicted with it need to be sent a 'Your clue must be ->THIS<- tall to
ride the Internet' notice?
-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech