[clug] DDOS attack against me by CLUG

[Alex Satrapa]

On 8 Sep 2004, at 09:26, Andrew Pollock wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 07, 2004 at 10:23:18PM +1000, Sam Couter wrote:
>> Alex Satrapa <grail at goldweb.com.au> wrote:
>>> Perhaps the list owner might consider setting the Reply-To header to
>>> the list?
>>
>> Perhaps people should (learn to) use mail clients that make it easy to
>> reply to the list? They are cheap and plentiful. Clue is pretty cheap
>> too, though I hear it's sometimes hard to come by.
>
> :-)

After reading DJB's "specification" of the Mail-Followup-To (which  
fails to separate specification from implementation) and various notes  
around the place on why Reply-To insertion might be good or bad, I've  
decided that M-F-T is a bad idea (or at least, a poorly executed one).

So until a better solution (aka "panacea") presents itself, I'll stick  
with manually editing the To and CC fields (which in the case of this  
email involved two mouse actions). But I'll also stick in a Reply-To  
header (a whole two keystrokes) just to keep myself happy. Which will  
still achieve the same massive-embarassment result as Reply-To munging  
or M-F-T awareness should someone try flinging mud at me too quickly  
and not check where the mail is going.

>> [ Hint: Don't hit "Reply to all" to reply to a list posting. ]

The specification for M-F-T says that a "reply to author" will go to:
1) Mail-Reply-To
2) Reply-To
3) From

So "reply to author" is not the answer.

If you've set up the mailing list in your list of lists, you can use  
the "reply to list" feature. But that will only reply to the list  
address, and not to anyone who isn't subscribed to the list but has  
been CC'd in the discussion, and definitely not to the M-F-T address  
(if the manual is to be believed).

>> [ Another hint: If you think you're about to be really funny by  
>> hitting
>>   "Reply to all" for this message, ensuring that I'll get a Cc: along
>>   with the copy I get through the mailing list, think again. ]
>
> Well I've got Mutt properly configured to respect, and set the
> Mail-Followup-To header, and so I do a "group reply" ("g") for all  
> messages,
> and in cases like your message, it won't send a Cc to you because  
> you've set
> a M-F-T header...

If mutt is compliant to the M-F-T spec, "reply to group" will send the  
reply to only the people specified in the M-F-T header. Thus noone will  
get CCs (even if they wanted them):
1) Mail-Followup-To
2) Mail-Reply-To + CC
3) Reply-To + CC
4) From + CC

For now, I'll just stick to manual munging of addresses, so my mail  
behaves the way I want it to.

Regards
Alex

"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we  
can solve them."  --Isaac Asimov

PS: Further reading material for those interested in M-F-T

http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/98dec/I-D/draft-ietf-drums-mail- 
followup-to-00.txt
    The draft which never made it to RFC

http://mercea.net/~exmh/html/exmh-users/2002-07/msg00039.html
    A statement which is closely aligned with my own opinion

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2001/01/msg00529.html
    A warning to mutt users experimenting with M-F-T
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