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Path: utzoo!linus!necntc!gordon!davido
From: davido@gordon.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.config,news.admin,soc.singles
Subject: Heavy Duty Apology (from GORDON)
Message-ID: <425@gordon.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Jul-87 16:13:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: gordon.425
Posted: Thu Jul  9 16:13:48 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jul-87 10:41:40 EDT
Reply-To: davido@gordon.UUCP (David Ornstein)
Distribution: world
Organization: Access Technology Inc., S. Natick MA, 01760
Lines: 45
Keywords: wimper cringe sorry
Xref: linus news.config:216 news.admin:581 soc.singles:10420

Well, I admit it.  I'm responsible for the mass of postings that went out
on 7/6/87 in soc.singles and then a few more bogus ones to news.config.

Actually, it was the result of some software that had been developed here
to allow bidirectional flow of news via our DECnet mail system.  We have
a multitude of VMS machines here and one Ultrix machine running DECnet/Ultrix.

The software that blew up was a couple of shell scripts that allowed news
to be mailed to everyone on our VMS machines and that allowed VMS users
to post news via mail.  The system had been in use for about a month before
this problem showed up.  For the first time, someone replied (via mail) to
an article generated using this system.  The article got caught in an infinite
loop in this newsmail gateway.  Fifty or so articles (1.3MB) got out before
the loop was stopped.

I didn't fully understand the cause until a few days later.  That's when,
after some help and suggestions from Jeff Janock (jeff@necntc - thanks, jeff)
I managed to get cancels out for, I hope, all of these articles.

I'm sorry for all this trouble.  I did test the system locally for over a
week before hooking it up to the outside world.  I just didn't check this
part out as fully as I might have.

The gateway is now temporarily disabled until I am completely sure that this
won't happen again.

I don't 100% understand the details of what caused the problem and plan to
make a subsequent posting to news.config about what I was trying to do
and how I was doing it.  At that time I'll thank you all for you constructive
suggests.  Until that time (and I guess for a little while after), I'll await
your inflamatory (sp?) and destructive flames.  Thanks, though, to the 5
folks that sent me mail about this - all mail was pleasant and constructive.

Embarrased,
me

-- 
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David Ornstein		"Never join a religion that has a water slide."

Internet:	davido@gordon.uucp
UUCP:		{mit-eddie|seismo}!mirror!gordon!davido
	     or {harvard|ames|decvax|husc6}!necntc!davido
US Snail:	Access Technology, 6 Pleasant St, Natck MA 01760
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