DO NOT PANIC! REMAIN CALM! READ *ALL* OF THIS MESSAGE BEFORE GETTING UPSET! Your Usenet test article was received here at the news gateway machine at Bull Worldwide Information Systems, in Billerica, MA, USA. If you want to suppress this message in the future, include the word "ignore" in the Subject: header of any subsequent articles posted to *.test. You could also post your test articles with a Distribution: header of "local" to prevent them from leaving your local machine, or you could also ask your local newsadmin to create a local *.test group that will not propagate outside of your organization. There are typically 5 possible reasons why you were sent this e-mail message: 1) You intentionally posted a Usenet news article to a *.test newsgroup. These newsgroups exist so you can verify that your articles are being propagated correctly. When your article arrives here, we send you this message as confirmation. We will only send you ONE e-mail reply for each of your test articles that we see. 2) You unintentionally posted a Usenet news article to a *.test newsgroup. This is a bit of net.childishness caused by a Followup-To: header directing all replies into a *.test newsgroup. This is done by somebody upset with the content of a discussion thread who wants to "punish" anybody who replies to his message. Your reply will be sent to *.test instead of the original newsgroup, and you will start receiving autoresponder messages similar to this one that you didn't ask for. To avoid this in the future, look for a Followup-To: header and make sure it's appropriate before replying to any articles. 3) You were a victim of a Reply-To: header directing your e-mail into a *.test newsgroup via a mail->news gateway. Similar to 2) above. 4) Somebody has forged a posting in your name to one of the *.test newsgroups. To avoid this in the future, use better net.etiquette and you will make fewer net.enemies. If you want to try and identify the forger, use the following procedure. Make a legitimate posting to the same *.test newsgroup that the forger used. We will send you an e-mail reply. Compare the Path: header from this legitimate reply with the Path: header from the forgery. The front part of the two headers will be the same or topologically similar path to your site. Where the forged header becomes substantially different can provide clues to where the forger lives. Note that if you receive multiple newsfeeds you may need to repeat this process several times so you can discover all legitimate paths between our site and yours. Once you think you've identified the forger's site, try sending POLITE e-mail to the newsadmin/ sysadmin/postmaster explaining the situation. 5) You issued a cancel control message to a *.test newsgroup. Some users dislike autoresponses for cancel messages, but the newsadmins here think it can be a valuable diagnostic tool for verifying cancel propagation. If you don't like it, use the "delete" key in your mail client! All headers plus at most 10 lines of user text from your original article are reproduced below for your perusal: Path: cass.ma02.bull.com!steamer.clam.com!newsie.dmc.com!grapevine.lcs.mit.edu!uhog.mit.edu!news.mathworks.com!zombie.ncsc.mil!news.duke.edu!godot.cc.duq.edu!hudson.lm.com!news.pop.psu.edu!news.cac.psu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!overload.lbl.gov!emf.emf.net!hilbert.dnai.com!nbn!miwok!news.zeitgeist.net!ack.berkeley.edu!not-for-mail Subject: lwall Message-ID: <PINE4545-dhfsdkjc@ack.berkeley.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ack.berkeley.edu Organization: cypherpunks Lines: 2 From: cypherpunks@toad.com Distribution: world Newsgroups: alt.test Date: 6 Feb 1995 19:34:19 GMT test test