[ih] update about bogus list unsubcribe requests

[Miles Fidelman]

True, but SMTP and related standards/practices have long suffered from 
lack of attention to standardizing things like:

- list functions & behaviors (or we wouldn't be dealing with the impact 
of DMARC on lists)

- the administrative realities of running mail systems and lists - such 
as trying to track down things like who's sending bogus unsubscribe 
requests, or who's been using their "spam" button as a delete key 
(things that get very hard when, for example, someone is forwarding list 
mail to a new address, but has left their old address on the list - I 
can't tell you how many times I've been asked to remove someone from a 
list, and simply can't find an address that remotely resembles the one 
they send the removal request from)

Various hacks like "Apparently-To:" are practical measures to address 
situations that are simply not addressed in a standard way.

They cause their own problems, of course - but....

Miles

On 8/26/16 4:17 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> Apparently, "Apparently-To:" SHOULD NOT be used [RFC5321]. It isn't present
> in list mail that reaches me, so it must have been added downstream for that
> particular subscriber.
>
> http://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/other/Sendmail_3rd/1565928393_ch25-77071.html
>
> Regards
>     Brian
>
> On 27/08/2016 06:05, Joe Touch wrote:
>> Hi, all,
>>
>> The issue appears to be that one subscriber to this list was using a
>> commercial service that automates list removal. That service, Vade
>> Secure, appears to have a bug in their software. It was issuing
>> unsubscribes based on the "From:" address, rather than based on the
>> "Apparently-To:" address.
>>
>> The email that triggers this has been removed from the list. We've also
>> alerted Vade Secure about the bug. I've tested this over the past day
>> and seen no notices.
>>
>> A big thanks to John Levine, who helped debug the issue, and Adrien
>> Gendre at Vade Secure for helping us identify the email subscriber directly.
>>
>> If the issue persists, please do let me know directly - I'll continue to
>> monitor unsubscribe requests to see if this pops up again.
>>
>> Joe (list admin)
>>
>> _______
>> internet-history mailing list
>> internet-history at postel.org
>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>>
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra