geoffb@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Geoff Bronner) (09/27/90)
I recently set up a set of filters so that all the assorted consulting
mailing lists I am on don't flood my mail box. So far so good but
I have discovered a strange behavior by the filter.
Several of the lists I am on have many members and when a user sends mail
to them the first person to reply to the users mail also Cc'c or Bcc's
to the mailing list so that no one else answers the question.
The filters I had set up were checking the "To:" field and I expected all the
responses to miss the filter because they would be too random users and
not the mailing list itself (as it was in the Cc: field).
Imagine my happy surprise when the filter started filtering mail that
matched the criteria in the Cc: field. This made thigs all the
better so I was happy to let it go but then I noticed that mail that
was Bcc'ed was _missing_ the filter. I also noticed that my elmrc file
weedout list did not include "Bcc:" but when I was reading mail
(or deliberately looking at the full headers for a message) the Bcc: field
never appears.
I've talked to the local Unix guru and looked through the manual to see if this
was a known bug or feature but no luck.
My goal: To find a way to filter mail by checking the Cc: and Bcc: field
in my .elm/filter-rules.
To find out why the Bcc: field seems to disappear when I am
reading mail (but not when I am composing mail).
--
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day, forever. - The B-52's | Hanover, NH 03755 (603) 646-3417syd@DSI.COM (Syd Weinstein) (09/27/90)
geoffb@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Geoff Bronner) writes: >My goal: To find a way to filter mail by checking the Cc: and Bcc: field > in my .elm/filter-rules. > To find out why the Bcc: field seems to disappear when I am > reading mail (but not when I am composing mail). Hmm, sounds like a misunderstanding of Bcc. Bcc is Blind Carbon Copy, it the recepient doesn't know that others are getting it, ie no record is made of the people receiving it via bcc. Thus the BCC list is not part of the envelop and not available to Elm or Filter. You cannot see it when reading it because it is not there. During composing, it is faked so you can enter one, but it is stripped before the message is sent. As should be for blind carbon copy. -- ===================================================================== Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP Elm Coordinator Datacomp Systems, Inc. Voice: (215) 947-9900 syd@DSI.COM or dsinc!syd FAX: (215) 938-0235
rusty@steelmill.cs.umd.edu (Rusty Haddock) (09/27/90)
In article <who cares :-> geoffb@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Geoff Bronner) writes: >Several of the lists I am on have many members and when a user sends mail >to them the first person to reply to the users mail also Cc'c or Bcc's >to the mailing list so that no one else answers the question. > >... >I've talked to the local Unix guru and looked through the manual to see if this >was a known bug or feature but no luck. > >My goal: To find a way to filter mail by checking the Cc: and Bcc: field > in my .elm/filter-rules. > To find out why the Bcc: field seems to disappear when I am > reading mail (but not when I am composing mail). You'll only be able to check for the Cc: field as the Bcc: field is not included in delivered mail message. This is done by the MTA (Mail Transport Agent [e.g. sendmail]). BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy [sic] which allows a message to be sent to an address (or mailing list) without this fact made known to the To: and Cc: recipients (even if they look at the headers :-). Yes, this could be done by sending separate mail messages but it's cheaper (compute/disk effort) to do it this way. -Rusty- -- Rusty Haddock DOMAIN: rusty@mimsy.cs.umd.edu Computer Science Department PATH: {uunet,rutgers}!mimsy!rusty University of Maryland "IBM sucks silicon!" College Park, Maryland 20742 -- PC Banana Jr,"Bloom County"