[SPARCbook] off topic: Naturetech Portable SPARC Mailing List

Bill Strange bstrange at polarisdata.com
Mon Jan 20 15:59:02 CST 2003


Hello Rich, et al.

It was a spam email.  Calm down and delete it.  I have gotten several
today, and still manage to function.  Back to sparc-book discussions?

I joined this list, and ungracefully unsubscribed from yours, to get
away from all this.  The sparc-book stuff is a good read for me, but all
this 'administrivia' is not.

Bill Strange
> On Mon, Jan 20, 2003 at 11:00:42AM -0800, Koyote wrote:
> > Having been around the net for several years, I am well enoguh versed in
> > spammer tactics to know not to suspect what is presented as the origin
> > of an email at face value.
> 
> Having been around the net for 20+ years, I also know this.  (Not that
> I can't be fooled or make mistakes: we all can.)
> 
> That's why I did not say at any point or in any way that I took the origin
> of the mail at face value.  You will note, please, that I did not include
> the full headers of the message.  I had already performed an analysis
> of those sufficient to convince me that the message originated with
> the person/domain it putatively claimed to be from: otherwise I would
> have pursued alternate routes of inquiry.  (I have included them at
> the end of this message so that you may perform your own analysis
> if you wish.)
> 
> > I realize you probably didn't mean to be extreaordinarily rude, but you
> > have managed to present an attitude representative of "convicted guilty
> > I will punish you now. who are you, by the way?" (in rough terms.)
> >
> > So you may want to be a bit less .... agressive in accusing and
> > questioning people in public forums?
> 
> 1. I don't think I was in the least bit rude.  <shrug>  Perhaps we have
> different idea about this, though.
> 
> 2. Let's review exactly what I said and see how it matches up with your statement:
> 
> 	Would you care to comment either on (a) why I'm getting spammed by them -- which
> 	is far better way to end up in my permanent blacklist and those of everyone else
> 	I can manage to inform via spam-l/news.admin.net-abuse.email/etc. than to sell
> 	me something or (b) how they seem to have gotten an old email address of mine
> 	and my name from netsys.com?
> 
> Now, let's check:
> 
> Accusation?  Nope.
> 
> Convicted guilty?   Nope.
> 
> Punishment?  Nope.  (The only suggestion of that refers to "them", e.g. NatureTech.
> 	There is nothing suggesting punishment for netsys.com.  Neither the
> 	inclusion nor the omission is an accident.)
> 
> Questioning: yes, absolutely.  Questions are one way of ascertaining
> facts.  In this particular case, since the probability was high that I
> was not alone in receiving this spam and that therefore others here
> would have the same or similar questions, I chose to ask them here.
> I also thought it interesting (if perhaps entirely coincidental) that
> this vendor had been discussed here very recently. 
> 
> Had it been my intention to indulge in accusation/conviction/punishment,
> I certainly would not have troubled myself to send an inquiry here,
> or anywhere else: I would have simply added the relevant domains/IP address
> blocks to my permanent blacklist and recommended the same action widely
> throughout the anti-spam community.  (Some of whom would do so, most of
> whom wouldn't.)  But I suspected that there was more to this than was
> immediately apparent and so I gave the benefit of a doubt to someone
> who I guessed (but did not know) was probably uninvolved in this.
> 
> And because Len has said that he is uninvolved, and because I have taken
> him at his word, I'm willing to accept that.  The question has been
> answered to my satisfaction, and, so as far as I can tell, Len/netsys.com
> is as much an innocent victim of this as the targets of the spammer,
> perhaps more so depending on how you want to look at it.
> 
> As to my question (a) I don't think Len has commented, and since he
> is uninvolved, I can see why he hasn't commented: how should he know?
> As to my question (b), Len has has suggested that they may have scraped
> his archive to come up with the address.  He's almost certainly right
> about that: I'd be really surprised if it were otherwise.
> 
> What remains to be seen is what NatureTech will do about this: at a
> minimum, I would expect them to fire the people responsible, to post
> a public apology on their web site, and to promise to never, ever even
> think about spamming again.  But of course, those are my expectations,
> and my expectations frequently remain unmet. ;-)
> 
> ---Rsk
> 
> Headers of the spam as received; note that
> 
> ms1.naturetech.com.tw -> 210.242.171.7
> 	and
> 7.171.242.210.in-addr.arpa -> ms1.naturetech.com.tw
> 
> so both forward and reverse DNS indicate that the top "Received" line
> is almost certainly accurate.  Also note that the originating address
> of 10.0.0.56 is in reserved IP space and probably corresponds to an
> internal network node named "benson" which probably has its mail gatewayed
> through 210.242.171.7.  The Message-ID is broken (no FQDN on the RHS)
> but appears consistent with the rest of the message.  I'm unable to get
> 210.242.171.7 (or their other MX, 210.242.171.11) to answer on port 25
> at the moment, so I can't tell you what MTA they're running or whether
> the headers which appear below are consistent with it.  The timezone
> appears appropriate for .tw though (+0800).
> 
> 
> > From benson.liu at naturetechws.com  Mon Jan 20 06:50:36 2003
> > Received: from ms1.naturetechws.com (IDENT:PGoR/nRcrhHZ1POGpBRqfvvjRV0xIUdG at ms1.naturetech.com.tw [210.242.171.7])
> > 	by trinity.magpage.com (8.12.3/8.11.3) with SMTP id h0K8pfiu054442
> > 	for <rsk at magpage.com>; Mon, 20 Jan 2003 03:51:47 -0500 (EST)
> > Received: from benson ([10.0.0.56])
> > 	by ms1.naturetechws.com (8.11.6/8.11.2) with SMTP id h0K8tYI19309
> > 	for <rsk at magpage.com>; Mon, 20 Jan 2003 16:55:35 +0800
> > Message-ID: <013601c2c061$5a6dc820$3800000a at liu>
> > From: "Benson L." <benson.liu at naturetechws.com>
> > To: <rsk at magpage.com>
> > Subject: Unix laptop to Solaris 8/9 environment
> > Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 16:53:06 +0800
> > MIME-Version: 1.0
> > Content-Type: multipart/related;
> > 	type="multipart/alternative";
> > 	boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0132_01C2C0A4.67ADAD00"
> > X-Priority: 3
> > X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
> > X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400
> > Disposition-Notification-To: "Benson L." <benson.liu at naturetechws.com>
> > X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400
> > Status: RO
> > Content-Length: 97229
> > Lines: 1317
> _______________________________________________
> Sparcbook mailing list  -  Sparcbook at sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/sparcbook
-- 
Bill Strange 
POLARIS E&E SERVICES, INC.
25025 I-45N  Suite 380
The Woodlands, TX  77380
281-367-6000  Voice
281-367-6160  Facsimile
www.polarisdata.com
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