On May 7, lists(_at_)professional(_dot_)org (Professional Software Engi wrote:
Subject: Re: anybody see this spam?
(originally replied off list - but there is a pre-approval process in place
before messages are accepted there. Geez.)
I replied off-list too. I thought _I_ was pretty draconian. Geez squared.
No wonder he's having trouble with this. :)>
At 12:42 PM 5/7/97 -0400, Robert Nicholson wrote thusly:
R>This is the first intelligent SPAM that's broken through my defenses.
R>Mailer because I have a rule to catch all rules from a MAILER_DAEMON
[snip]
R>X-Uidl: 9876543fgt9821376nb0988mm632xx321
As a rule, EVERY message I've ever receieved with an X-UIDL header has been
spam. The presence of this header appears to cause odd actions with the
two big PC-Windows mailers (Eudora Pro and Pegasus). I've had my
suspicions that it is planted in the header for exactly that reason - is
anyone interested in elaborating on this optional header?
As it was explained to me: X-Uidl is a "Unique IDentifier Line" which is
inserted so that you can tell whether mail on a POP server has been read or
not.
I'm not clear on exactly who is supposed to do the inserting. If it's
supposed to be done by the end user (well, the end user's mail agent) then
it is completely irrelevant to me and I could just throw away anything with
an X-Uidl since I don't use POP. I don't see how it could be any other
way, since the sender has no way of knowing what other ID lines might be in
the receiver's mail spool and therefore can't ensure that it's unique.
Bob F.