Re: can't receive messages from ourselves (e.g., through a mailing-list)

Hi Marc,

On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 10:51:58PM +0200, Marc Herbert wrote:
> 
> Suppose you use ASK, and you also subscribed to some mailing-list
> ("[email protected]" for instance :-)
> 
> When you subscribed, you cared to put the list in your
> whitelist-local.txt:
> 
>  to a-s-k-users@lists\.sourceforge\.net

This may work or not. Some list-managers rewrite the "To:" header to include
the recipient's email address there. Sourceforge puts the name of the list
in the "To:" header, so you can either include this in your whitelist or,
perhaps, we could use some MTA passed header to also match the "Envelope to".

> Of course, you don't include your signature with your mailkey when you
> post on the list:
> - the mailkey is kind of secret, no need to publish it
> - no need to clutter messages on the list with a signature :-)
> - after all, the mailkey trick is an optional hack in ASK: in fact,
>   you don't even bothered to configure a mailkey, you don't even have
>   one.

I think you got it all reversed here. :) The mailkey is *not* secret at
all. It should go on every message you send out. Also, the mailkey is
*not* optional at all. You *must* have your mailkey set up correctly or
else ASK will not work well.

> Then guess what ? Each time you send a message on the list, you won't
> receive it, it will be put in "junk". For instance, _I_ won't receive
> this message you are reading right now. Why ? Because of this weird
> piece of code:

> in askmessage.py:__inlist():
> 
> 		## If the sender is one of our emails, we immediately return false.
> 		## This allows the use of "from @ourdomain.com" without having to
> 		## worry about matching from [email protected]
> 
> 		if self.is_from_ourselves(sender):
> 			self.log.write(10, "  __inlist(): We are the sender (%s). No match performed." % sender)
> 			self.list_match = ""
> 			return 0
> 
> 
> Marco, could you explain ?

This is here because you cannot trust your own address in any manner (unless
it contains your mailkey). Otherwise, it would be very easy for spammers to
deliver a message to you: Just make it seem as if it's coming from you. For
obvious reasons, ASK cannot send yourself a confirmation, so in the end, the
choice is either deliver or junk.

This is why these messages are "junked" instead of blindly deleted. This
gives you a chance to check, from times to times, if there's something not
quite right because you forgot to whitelist your list address, for instance.

Regards,
Paga

-- 
Marco Paganini          | UNIX / Linux / Networking
[email protected]   | PGP: http://www.paganini.net/pgp/
http://www.paganini.net | Magnus Frater te spectat...


-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials
Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President and CEO of
GenToo technologies. Learn everything from fundamentals to system
administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470&alloc_id=3638&op=click