Tony, Thank you for that explanation on where these are coming from - and the comment that L-SERV relays a reply back from their made-up e-mail address to their real one. I've wanted a couple times to reply back only to the original poster and didn't know a reply to their fake address would get to them!
Rex -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Tony Harminc Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2024 11:59 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Posting issues - why do some posts have anonymous FROM-addresses? On Wed, 10 Apr 2024 at 08:50, Jeremy Nicoll <jn.ls.mfrm...@letterboxes.org> wrote: > I just noticed that some posts here show the poster's own email > address whereas others have something like > > 00000xxxxxxxxxxx-dmarc-requ...@listserv.ua.edu This is a workaround invented by Lsoft (the makers of LISTSERV) for changes made around ten years ago by Google and other "big tech" companies that largely broke the decades-old world of mailing lists. A cynic would say that Google et al just want to keep everyone and everything "on platform", i.e. not support nasty things like mailing lists because they allow people to communicate without going through them. Google would say it's all about avoiding spam and phishing emails. Essentially things go wrong because LISTSERV is unable to sign (loosely speaking) an email that it receives from a subscriber and wants to relay to the list. And if a recipient's mail system rejects it for that reason, then LISTSERV generates a random email address @ the LISTSERV address, and sends from that address (which of course it *is* authorized to send from). If someone responds directly to a list poster who has such a generated email address, LISTSERV will forward it on, but of course that introduces a third party into the email chain. Nobody wants that, but it makes the best of a bad situation. If you look back at archives or your own personal mail, you can see some people's list email addresses change over time as their mail provider has changed their policies and LISTSERV dynamically assigns one of their xxx-dmarc- things. If you go to the Lsoft site https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lsoft.com__;!!KjMRP1Ixj6eLE0Fj!uXlmrgWL3lI2XQhm4TXx1CMD4SCDTehWjw55VfqNdXpiQ1iRR4DpEwdpxyUMWsC2-XbpREzkCn44w5ea$ and search there for "dmarc", you'll see a bunch of stuff on how they deal with the problems.It's not pretty, but it mostly works. Does the latter indicate a post made via newsgroup bit.listserv.ibm-main > (if the gateway between NNTP & listserv still works?) while the former > indicate "posts" made directly to the listserv by email? I don't think it has anything to do with NNTP and such. It's all about how strict a given list subscriber's email handling is. Tony H. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The information contained in this message is confidential, protected from disclosure and may be legally privileged. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, distribution, copying, or any action taken or action omitted in reliance on it, is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and destroy the material in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard copy format. Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
