berleant@ut-sally.UUCP (Dan Berleant) (01/08/87)
O.k. electronic detectives! Recently in one of the newsgroups someone posted a message which was considered inappropriate by many who probably flamed him in a big way. He followed up with an apology, claiming that: 1) He received a copy of someone else's posting, but by email. 2) He sent a personal reply in response. 3) His response ended up posted in the newsgroup. He accused his intended recipient of posting it (unlikely). His intended recipient said he never sent him any copy and accused him of ... OK, you get the idea. The question is, what really happened? Can a mailer mess things up by accident? Could a 3rd party send someone a message with an edited header that would route a reply to some other location? In short, what gives?!? thanks, Dan Berleant UUCP: {gatech,ucbvax,ihnp4,seismo,kpno,ctvax}!ut-sally!berleant ARPA: ai.berleant@r20.utexas.edu
jc@cdx39.UUCP (John Chambers) (01/09/87)
> 1) He received a copy of someone else's posting, but by email. > 2) He sent a personal reply in response. > 3) His response ended up posted in the newsgroup. > > Could a 3rd party send someone a message with an edited header that > would route a reply to some other location? In short, what gives?!? This isn't at all difficult. What I'd do is put an article into a scratch file, edit it a bit to make it say whatever I liked, and then type: uux foo!rmail joe <junk The edited article would be mailed to foo!joe, with a initial "From " line, but otherwise unaltered. If I know something about his mailer, I can set it up so that all sorts of funny things will happen when he tries to reply to it. This is dependent, of course, on joe not looking too closely at the headers, and trusting his mailer to handle it for him. You're welcome. -- John M Chambers Phone: 617/364-2000x7304 Email: ...{adelie,bu-cs,harvax,inmet,mcsbos,mit-eddie,mot[bos]}!cdx39!{jc,news,root,usenet,uucp} Smail: Codex Corporation; Mailstop C1-30; 20 Cabot Blvd; Mansfield MA 02048-1193 Clever-Saying: If we can't fix it, it ain't broke.