Xref: utzoo news.admin:2117 alt.test:210
Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ucsd!hub!comdesign!pst
From: pst@comdesign.uucp (Paul Traina)
Newsgroups: news.admin,alt.test
Subject: I've done something stupid -- it was not intentional
Keywords: alt.test, Erik Fair's echo servant, net congestion, idiocy
Message-ID: <267@comdesign.UUCP>
Date: 10 May 88 20:46:25 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Network Equipment Technologies, Santa Barbara
Lines: 36

(red face)

To those of you who have Erik Fair's echo servant, and also to the net
in general,  I'd like to appologise for some unintentional net congestion
sabatoge.

I wanted to test if our "alt" outward propiagation was making it to the real
world, so I sent out an "alt.test" message.  It was a copy of the rather
humorous "misc.test digest" that was just produced by someone at udel.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is:  Erik Fair's all.test echo program
sends mail to *every* person on *EVERY* from line.  Because the alt.test
message that I sent out has many from lines,  mail has been sent (repeatedly)
to everyone who has contributed to misc.test digest.

I have taken steps to stop this (issued appropriate 'cancel'),  but I'm afraid
the cancel's won't travel fast enough.  If you have the echo program on alt.test,
your site has spent a lot of time sending out garbage mail.  If you "contributed"
to misc.test digest,  your mailbox is now full of garbage.  If you are a
neighbor of some site with the echo program,  you have been processing tons of
mail & uucp traffic has been rather heavy lately.

All in all, I've boo boo'ed big-time.  It wasn't intentional, I was unaware
of this feature in Erik's program.  I don't know if this thing has spread
like wildfire -- I hope it hasn't multiplied too much.

In any case, I'm sorry (my worst fears are that this thing has replicated into
a monster -- how many sites are using Erik's program?).

						Paul

-- 
Paul S. Traina				arpa: @pyramid.com:pst@comdesign.uucp
ComDesign Data Communications		-or-  pst%comdesign.uucp@pyramid.com
Network Equipment Technologies		uucp: ...ucbvax!pyramid!comdesign!pst
Santa Barbara, California, USA		bell: +1 805 562-3396