On 7 Oct 2008 at 9:32, Harold Fuchs wrote: > 2008/10/7 mike scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > <snip> > > He's back, I see. > > > > He certainly seems to have a major problem, in getting unwanted mails > > not just from this list. If someone has taken /real/ umbrage, and > > rigged a forwarding account that filters unsubscription request > > emails, he's stymied. Although his real ire should be directed at > > gmail for not fixing the problem, methinks: that seems to be the > > common point from what he's written. > > > > <snip> > > Er. Please, how could Google fix this problem? One has never needed > permission to forward e-mail. As far as I know there's no such facility in
That's not strictly true. It's almost certainly illegal to forward mail /without/ permission of the recipient (tacit/implicit/otherwise). Certainly in the UK - unauthorized modification of computer data, unauthorized access to a computer system - and I'd bet on the USA being likewise. Google (& I've not checked) almost certainly have T&C's that say no misuse of their system is allowed - if this isn't misuse, I don't know what is! They could (should?) simply shut down the offending account completely. > the protocols. Are you saying Google should abolish its Autoforward feature? Of course not. > I think you'd hear howls of protest if you suggested that. And even if > Google wrote special software, one could just use Outlook Express or > Thunderbird (or, presumably, any other mail client) to do it. Both those > programs let you set up a rule/filter that does autoforward. For example, I And misuse would result in a complaint to the ISP concerned, and a responsible ISP would have a "quiet word" for starters. Again, most ISPs will have T&Cs prohibiting misuse. Harold, suppose I took umgbrage and started sending thousands of emails to you. What would you do? I suspect you'd ask nicely for me to stop (if you could), then trace the source back to my account at virginmedia and quite rightly complain to them. I'd be offnet faster than you could say 'spam'. Why should Google expect not to be as responsible? > can arrange in Outlook Express to forward to you any message that comes in > to me addressed to "[email protected]". And there's nothing you can do > about that. You may be able to *cure* it by unsubscribing me but you can't > *prevent* it happening in the first place. Ultimately, I suspect legal action could be taken against the offending /mail system/ operator if they've been notified of a problem and fail to act. IANAL of course. > > While we are on this, what is the procedure for unsubscribing the attacker? > Does the victim have to masquerade as the attacker by setting up a special > account in his/her mail system? Or can it be done using ezmlm's proceudre as > explained in its Help? Haven't we been round this? To summarise: /Provided/ the intermediate attacking email address is known, you simply send an unsub request for that address(*). Then /provided/ the unsub confirmation is forwarded like the unwanted clutter, you will receive it. You might have to search through tens of thousands of other items for it! Then you reply to it - and it doesn't matter what your sending address is at this point, as it has a magic cookie embedded. There is actually another, brute force, way of unsubscribing. If Chuck had a word with his ISP, they /might/ bounce OOo (etc) list mails for him. The OOo list server is bright enough to catch delivery failures and realise there's a problem - it will eventually send a probe message, and if that's not deliverable, it will automatically unsubscribe the address. Might take a week or two though. I know for sure other lists aren't so clever - but they're not /our/ problem :-) I don't know if Chuck will read this, but I'd very strongly advise him to have company mail sent to his own domain, rather than sbcglobal. At least then he could - in a situation of dire need like this - be a bit more clever about what email is delivered. (*) by (1) changing your email client to use the attacker's address as the sender address; (2) telnetting into your favourite SMTP server and providing the necessary sender address; (3) using the "=" form of the OOo list unsub address as noted in the help {I can /never/ remember the exact form, so won't try to guess!!!} -- Permission for this mail to be processed by any third party in connection with marketing or advertising purposes is hereby explicitly denied. http://www.scottsonline.org.uk lists incoming sites blocked because of spam [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mike Scott, Harlow, Essex, England --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
