csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst) (05/11/88)
A 2300-line message was posted to misc.test (and cross posted to talk.bizarre) by 22116@pyr1.acs.udel.EDU that refers to itself as the "misc.test digest." It contains the complete text of all the misc.test messages posted within the past month or so, a total of 107 articles. This awesomely stupid menuever was topped by pst@comdesign.UUCP reposting the same message to alt.test. The posting of two 68 Kbyte messages to test groups is trivial compared to the effect of all the echo reflectors out there. Every one is forwarding the damn postings back to the sender. Worse, at least one standard reflector script, Erik Fair's, echos mail to *EVERY* "Path:" line in the test article. Since the article contains 109 Path lines, we mailed the 68K posting to all 109 of them! We have broken the UUCP link to comdesign, and are trashing every copy of the test message that we can find. Unfortunately, nearly all of them already went out during the night, and we apologize to all of you who found this monster in your inbox this morning. Other sites, especially those running echo reflec- tors, should survey their own spool partitions and squash as many of these as they can. <csg>
chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (05/11/88)
>The posting of two 68 Kbyte messages to test groups is trivial compared to the >effect of all the echo reflectors out there. Every one is forwarding the damn >postings back to the sender. Worse, at least one standard reflector script, >Erik Fair's, echos mail to *EVERY* "Path:" line in the test article. Since the >article contains 109 Path lines, we mailed the 68K posting to all 109 of them! Another thing that's happened recently is that some folks have recently posted messages cross posted to misc.test. I responded to one without noticing which groups it was going to, and have been inundated with the automatic "ack" messages from around the country ever since. That's a guaranteed way to irritate someone. Which, considering the source, was exactly the point, I believe. Chuq Von Rospach chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ I come to preach to a religion that doesn't exist. It has no members. It has no clergy. It has no doctrine. It has no collection plate.
fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) (05/11/88)
Frankly, I am amazed that awk didn't blow up on this. If I recall correctly, the entire "To:" field is done by one printf, on the (obviously erroneous) assumption that there wouldn't be too many addresses... What's really fun is that I'm getting all these bounces from addresses that the awk script didn't guess too well on (the same ones that I got from the previous month's tests). Needless to say, this does not make me happy. Fortunately, I just converted to using mh, and I can (and do) pick these gems out of the inbox and file them in another folder before dealing with my regular mail... So, can anyone think of a suitable punishment for these two ignoramuses? Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu
msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) (05/11/88)
Being one of the recipients, I suggest that we coerce the sysadmins to
remove these user's accounts, and if they refuse, pull up all links to
their machines.
I show that udccpyr1 is not at a backbone site, and I don't even have
a map entry for comdesign, so I don't know what their situation.
For their little "trick" I think this punishment is fitting.
Mark
--
Mark Smith (alias Smitty) "Be careful when looking into the distance,
61 Tenafly Road that you do not miss what is right under your nose."
Tenafly, NJ 07670 {backbone}!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith
msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu Bill and Opus in '88!!!
--
Mark Smith (alias Smitty) "Be careful when looking into the distance,
61 Tenafly Road that you do not miss what is right under your nose."
Tenafly, NJ 07670 {backbone}!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith
msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu Bill and Opus in '88!!!grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) (05/11/88)
In article <May.10.22.44.49.1988.7262@topaz.rutgers.edu> msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) writes: > Being one of the recipients, I suggest that we coerce the sysadmins to > remove these user's accounts, and if they refuse, pull up all links to > their machines. > I show that udccpyr1 is not at a backbone site, and I don't even have > a map entry for comdesign, so I don't know what their situation. > For their little "trick" I think this punishment is fitting. Perhaps you should wait for some reasonable summary of the facts before passing sentence. Are you sure these agents of chaos deliberatly set out to create a net.catastrophe? I'd assume the people at Delaware and this comdesign place can take care of any neccessary wrist slapping without a bunch of threats... -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|ihnp4|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@uunet.uu.net Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
matt@oddjob.UChicago.EDU (Java Man) (05/12/88)
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes:
) Are you sure these agents of chaos deliberatly set
) out to create a net.catastrophe?
Suppose there had been no automatic responding programs at all.
Would it then have been a *good* idea to repost and re-repost all the
articles from a "test" newsgroup?
Matt Crawfordtom@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Thomas Uffner) (05/12/88)
On the positive side though, this did bring to light a potential flaw
in some of the auto-ack and reflector scripts. correcting this now
might prevent a worse disaster later.
tom
--
Arpa: tom@vax1.acs.udel.edu
Uucp: ...{ihnp4,unidot,uunet}!cfg!udel!udccvax1!tom
"Themes were useless; Destiny was here and the foot pedals were bleeding."Ilan@cup.portal.com (05/12/88)
Erik,
Would you consider the following "suitable punishment" ?
Send a 2000 volt electric current to their modem via the net
and blow their server to bits. <hehe>
- Ilan Rabinowitz -
Ilan@cup.portal.comshan@mcf.UUCP (Sharan Kalwani) (05/13/88)
In article <52733@sun.uucp> chuq@sun.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >That's a guaranteed way to irritate someone. Which, considering the source, >was exactly the point, I believe. I am afraid, but seems that such postings almost beg the attention of bean counters to come down hard on some of the nets-sites and hope these actions won't cause the plug to be pulled from sites whose phone bills skyrocket. -- sharan kalwani, vax facility, mcf, 110 east warren avenue, detroit mi 48201 usenet : ...!{uunet!umix, pur-ee!iuvax, ucbvax!mtxinu, ihnp4!mibte}!mcf!shan internet: shan%mcf.uucp@umix.cc.umich.edu shan@mcf.uucp dec enet: decwrl::"umix.cc.umich.edu!mcf!shan" fax: (313) 831-8714