[time-nuts] More on the weird stuff at the top of messages

[Magnus Danielson]

From: John Ackermann N8UR <jra at febo.com>
Subject: [time-nuts] More on the weird stuff at the top of messages
Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 08:49:45 -0400
Message-ID: <46865169.4070109 at febo.com>

> The two lines that are being added to the top of time-nuts messages are
> coming from some sort of interaction between four separate parts of the
> mail handling system here; I did a system software update yesterday and
> something broke.
> 
> One of the two lines seems to be part of what is normally logged during
> message processing, while the other (the "Errors-to" line) is a header
> that would normally be in the message, but not displayed in the body.

Ironically they didn't show up this time. :)

> I've done a google search and haven't come up with any reference to this
> problem, and frankly because of the number of programs involved (at
> least Exim4, Mailman, and SA-Exim) tracking down just what's going on is
> likely to be beyond my abilities, or at least the time I can spend on
> figuring it out.

I use postfix for my mailman. I use greyfix as a first line of defence.
Should get my act together and hook in the spamassassin.

> As far as I can tell, the email address in the "Errors-to" line is the
> address of the specific recipient of the message, and not someone else's
> (in other words, your copy of the message will include your address,
> while mine will include my address).  So, there isn't a privacy issue.

It should normally sit in the header and only show up when inspecting it.
I think that part is incorrectly inserted as a result of the other message.

> However, if you reply to a previous message, that header will by default
> be in the quoted original text and will expose your email address.  So,
> it would be best to look for and if necessary delete those two lines
> from any reply where you quote an earlier message.
> 
> I'll keep an eye on the available updates and hopefully there will be a
> fix for this problem Real Soon Now.  (I'm running Debian unstable on the
> mail server, and updates occur very frequently.)

I too run Debian unstable, but having chosen the Postfix/Greyfix path for my
email lists it works well most of the time. Mailman upgrades is however not as
painless as they should be, but they are rare. I also run Postfix and Mailman
on a BSD machine and that keeps tickin, even if it is a multidomain setup.

Cheers,
Magnus