[wp-hackers] Double Postings? Am I seeing double?

[Eric Pierce]

I think he just mis-configured Mail2Forum (http://www.mail2forum.com/ 
wiki/Main_Page).  It grabs the messages out of a POP account and  
posts them into phpBB.  It can also forward the message on to another  
email address after posting.

-Eric

On Mar 16, 2006, at 4:23 AM, Roy Schestowitz wrote:

> ___/ On Thu 16 Mar 2006 09:01:08 GMT, [ Les Bessant ] wrote : \___
>
>>
>>>> Suspicously all the "double postings" have the following in them:
>>>>
>>>> - -------------------- m2f --------------------
>>>>
>>>> <snip what="junk">
>>>>
>>>> - -------------------- m2f --------------------
>>>>
>>>> And come from the same server - http:// <burp /> /forums/
>>>>
>>>> Someone is reposting posts back to the lists!
>>>>
>>>> Thankfully it seems to have stopped
>>>
>>> Given the sporadic lag in between such posts, it would be wise to  
>>> assume
>>> this was spam. It forged senders' addresses to get past  
>>> moderation and used
>>> identical content for  disguise. The forger was not even wise  
>>> enough to
>>> strip off the appended footer. It must the price of having decent  
>>> PageRank
>>> in the archives.
>>>
>>> Roy
>>
>> Given that they came in a burst, I'd say it was much more likely  
>> that a
>> misconfigured, or temporarily malfunctioning mail server remailed  
>> them. I've
>> seen this happen a lot when a server is used to collect mail from  
>> a POP
>> account. Server sees that the message is addressed to an address  
>> that's not
>> on its domain (the list address in this case) and "helpfully"  
>> sends it out
>> again.
>>
>> Often happens with a badly set up Microsoft Small Business Server.  
>> It's
>> great fun when the original recipients of a mailing get hundreds  
>> of copies
>> of the same message.
>
> That's a possibility too, I agree.
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/10/ 
> server_bug_cripples_dublin_law_firms/
>
> "The problem was attributed to an improper server configuration,  
> causing
> five servers to send out more than half a million emails to Dublin
> solicitors. The deluge of mail originated with a publishing  
> company's email
> marketing message, which was sent to solicitors. When some solicitors
> attempted to reply to the mail, a fault in the solicitors'  
> configuration of
> Microsoft Small Business Server sent the original email to their  
> entire
> email database tens of thousands of times."
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Roy
>
> --
> Roy S. Schestowitz      | Windows O/S: chmod a-x internet; kill -9  
> internet
> http://Schestowitz.com  |    SuSE Linux     ¦     PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
>  9:15am  up 8 days  1:52,  6 users,  load average: 0.11, 0.14, 0.23
>
> _______________________________________________
> wp-hackers mailing list
> wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com
> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers