Someone's screwing around with anon.penet.fi

stewarts at ix.netcom.com stewarts at ix.netcom.com
Sat Apr 6 20:40:25 PST 1996


At 11:51 AM 4/6/96 -0800, Steve Reid <steve at edmweb.com> wrote:
>Here's another one of them unsolicited messages from anon.penet.fi.
>I have a feeling lots of people on the Cypherpunks list are going to be 
>getting these... My first post to the list was only about two days ago, 
>and someone's already messing around. :(

Anon.penet.fi is working just fine.  The problem is that someone
subscribed to the cypherpunks list as anXXXXXX at anon.penet.fi, so
any time you post to cypherpunks, anon.penet.fi receives a message
        From: you at yourplace.com
        To: anXXXXXX at anon.penet.fi
        Subject: My exciting post to cypherpunks
It then checks its userlist for you at yourplace.fi, doesn't find you,
allocates anYYYYYY at anon.penet.fi, notifies you, and sends out the message
        From: anYYYYYY at anon.penet.fi
        To: hisname at hisplace.com
        Subject: My exciting post to cypherpunks

In my case, if I post to cypherpunks, it checks its userlist for
stewarts at ix.netcom.com, finds anZZZZZZ at anon.penet.fi, sees that my
password is PASSWORD, sees that the posting doesn't include the password,
and sends me a reject message.  

The problem is that, the next time you post to cypherpunks, it'll leak
your identity in the message headers; I forget the details.

The way to prevent this whole mess is to educate majordomo to turn
subscription requests from anXXXXXX at anon.penet.fi into naXXXXXX at anon.penet.fi,
or at least to block subscription requests form anXXXXXX at anon.penet.fi.







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