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Richard E. Depew

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Mar 30, 1993, 9:58:04 PM3/30/93
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Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (tm) by ARMM5. Press 'n' to skip.

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I've had a few complaints that my earlier ARMM5 moderated posts
with "Also-Control: cancel" headers were not being handled correctly,
and it has been suggested that I use "Supersedes:" in place of
"Also-Control: cancel".

Is there any reason to prefer one over the other if the intent is to
replace one article with another?

*This* post carries the Supersedes header. It behaves just like the
Also-Control header with C-news, at least so far as I can tell.

Dick
--
Richard E. Depew, Munroe Falls, OH r...@redpoll.neoucom.edu (home)
"...plug the RS-232 connector on the back side of the Mini Modem 2400 into
the RS-232 connector on your computer, then screw up." - modem instructions

Michael D. Maxfield

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Mar 31, 1993, 12:02:33 AM3/31/93
to
>In article <AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...@redpoll.neoucom.edu> r...@redpoll.neoucom.edu (Richard E. Depew) writes:
>>Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (tm) by ARMM5. Press 'n' to skip.
>>
>>*This* post carries the Supersedes header. It behaves just like the
>>Also-Control header with C-news, at least so far as I can tell.
>>
>>Dick
Or is that DICK WAD?

So, What the hell happened here... forgot to give it enough smarts to
detect it's own repeats? Looks like you created the Anally Reactive
Message Multiplier by mistake.

Oh, and if this wasn't by mistake... (Yeah, we've been over this a
thousand times in the last week) does an action like *this* deserve
a mailbomb response?

Inquiring ARMM'd minds would like to know.

Peter Honeyman

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Mar 31, 1993, 12:50:25 AM3/31/93
to
Joel Furr writes:
|> Phlap-slabble noob gorpler?

kenneth, what is the frequency?

peter

Joel Furr

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Mar 31, 1993, 1:04:28 AM3/31/93
to


Dick, Dick, Dick. People are going to be laughing about THIS one for _years_.

James Kibo Parry

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Mar 31, 1993, 1:23:27 AM3/31/93
to

Sick, sick, sick. Weevils are showing up for plowing around HIS nose for _beers_.

What's worse is that Mr. Depew has just started a new "cascade" which
will terrorize the net for decades.

-- K.

What a waste of bandwidth.

Joel Furr

unread,
Mar 31, 1993, 1:39:27 AM3/31/93
to

Dunno. Looks like I dorked out and sent three followups instead of three
replies. Cancel, cancel, cancel.

Jay Maynard

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Mar 31, 1993, 1:47:51 AM3/31/93
to

Now, now, Peter...don't give Joel a hard time over that one. It's the most
intelligent thing he's posted in at least six months.
--
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmay...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity.
"I can understand if it just won't work but I think locking up my system
to tell me this is a little excessive." -- Steve Luzynski

Joel Furr

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Mar 31, 1993, 4:29:00 AM3/31/93
to
Ick, ick, ick. Devils are blowing up our feeds for _jeers_.

>What's worse is that Mr. Depew has just started a new "cascade" which
>will terrorize the net for decades.
>
> -- K.
>
> What a waste of bandwidth.

Yep.

I'd have thought that this was an April Fools joke of dubious humor, only
Dick Depew blew it by triggering the Robot of Doom a day early.

Gordon Van Huizen

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Mar 31, 1993, 3:19:03 AM3/31/93
to
> Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (tm) by ARMM5. Press 'n' to
skip.
>
> Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (tm) by ARMM5. Press 'n' to
skip.
>
> [...ad nauseum through 40 or so posts...]
>

Richard Richard Richard Richard:

Are you DONE making the net your playground yet? I'm
AMAZED at the tolerance that has been extended to your Dr.
Strangelove experiments and notions of social order,
but isn't enough enough?

--
Gordon Van Huizen vox: 619.488.9411 fax: 619.488.3045
Metrosoft g...@metrosoft.com [NeXTmail welcome]

"Our ship is coming in, it just isn't black." - MTD 2/93

Jason Paul Togyer

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Mar 31, 1993, 12:00:34 PM3/31/93
to
Excerpts from netnews.news.admin.policy: 31-Mar-93 Re: ARMM: ARMM:
>>>>Ad Infi.. Michael D. Maxfield@netc (762)

> >In article
> <AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...@redpoll.neoucom.edu>
> r...@redpoll.neoucom.edu (Richard E. Depew) writes:
> >>Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (tm) by ARMM5. Press 'n' to skip.

> Oh, and if this wasn't by mistake... (Yeah, we've been over this a

> thousand times in the last week) does an action like *this* deserve
> a mailbomb response?

> Inquiring ARMM'd minds would like to know.

Seems to be a mailbomb response would be letting him off too easy--
let's all go to Munroe Falls, O., and break his fingers.

(Sarcasm captioned for the Ohio State Police and the FBI)

--Jason, who's pulled a few NetBoners himself

*************************************************
* Jason Togyer, Carnegie Tech (C-MU), *
* Civil Engineering, Pittsburgh, Penn., USA *
* "I wouldn't want to belong to any group that *
* would have me as a member." *
* --Groucho Marx *
*************************************************
DISCLAIMER: Any group that WOULD have me as a member disavows any
knowledge of this message and of me.

Francisco X DeJesus

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Mar 31, 1993, 12:16:33 PM3/31/93
to
In article <tweekC4...@netcom.com> tw...@netcom.com (Michael D. Maxfield) writes:
>>In article <AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...@redpoll.neoucom.edu> r...@redpoll.neoucom.edu (Richard E. Depew) writes:
>>>Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (tm) by ARMM5. Press 'n' to skip.
>>>
>>>*This* post carries the Supersedes header. It behaves just like the
>>>Also-Control header with C-news, at least so far as I can tell.

Er, maybe not, Dick.

This brightens up my day... as soon as I can stop laughing and catch my
breath for a second I'll tell all the programmers here about it... we're
going to be cracking up about this for years to come!

Oh, by the way Dick... thanks for wasting so much bandwidth and costing
the net (ARMM^n)*(thousands of dollars) with your stupid experiment. I'm
sure everyone who pays for their feed appreciates it...

Is it safe now to put you, "anon" and "ARMM" in my KILL file, or do you
still insist on playing god (and playing one badly)? As I mentioned before,
I was quite happy ignoring this whole anonymity thread until you stepped
in with your censorship crap and started to force-feed it to the net. I
wish I could have continued to ignore this, but you created a major problem,
and ignoring a problem does not (always) make it go away. If there is
anything that will make you (or more to the point, ARMM) go away, please
let us know. I think you have just about used up your quota of net.patience
and net.benefit-of-the-doubt. It's about time you realize that, whatever
your intentions, your methods SUCK.

>So, What the hell happened here... forgot to give it enough smarts to
>detect it's own repeats? Looks like you created the Anally Reactive
>Message Multiplier by mistake.

Heheheh! I knew ARMM was an acronym for something else! Comedy...
--
Francisco X DeJesus ----- S A I C ----- dej...@c3ot.saic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are mine. Typos and errors are yours *
"Duck Season!" "Rabbit Season!" "...rabbit season." "It's Duck Season! SHOOT!"

Joel Furr

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Mar 31, 1993, 2:27:31 PM3/31/93
to
In article <C4rJz...@avalon.nwc.navy.mil> dej...@avalon.nwc.navy.mil (Francisco X DeJesus) writes:
>In article <tweekC4...@netcom.com> tw...@netcom.com (Michael D. Maxfield) writes:
>>>In article <AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...@redpoll.neoucom.edu> r...@redpoll.neoucom.edu (Richard E. Depew) writes:
>>>>Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (tm) by ARMM5. Press 'n' to skip.
>>>>
>>>>*This* post carries the Supersedes header. It behaves just like the
>>>>Also-Control header with C-news, at least so far as I can tell.
>
>Er, maybe not, Dick.
>
>This brightens up my day... as soon as I can stop laughing and catch my
>breath for a second I'll tell all the programmers here about it... we're
>going to be cracking up about this for years to come!

In the sober light of day, I'm laughing as I re-read the comments on the
March 30 ARMM Massacre. Last _night_, on the other hand, I had a mental
image of a machine sitting atop a hill, making a low droning sound,
releasing infinite numbers of Frankenstein's Monsters on the surrounding
environs. Frankenstein's Monsters here, Frankenstein's Monsters there,
lurching about stiff-leggedly, arms outstretched, and all muttering the
same word over and over: ARMM ARMM ARMM ARMM ARMM.

Usenet History, I tell you. This needs its own listing in the Jargon File:

:ARMM: n. A USENET posting robot created by Dick Depew of Munroe Falls, Ohio.
Originally intended to serve as a means of controlling posts through
anon servers (see also {anon servers}). Transformed by programming
ineptitude into a monster of Frankenstein proportions, it broke loose
on the night of March 31, 1993 and proceeded to spam news.admin.policy
with something on the order of 200 messages in which it attempted, and
failed, to cancel its own messages. This produced a recursive chain
of messages each of which tacked on:

* another "ARMM:" onto the subject line
* a meaningless "supersedes" header line
* another character in the message id (producing message ids several
lines long)
* a ^L

This produced a flood of messages in which each header took up several
screens and each message id got longer and longer and longer and each
subject line started wrapping around five or six times. ARMM was
accused of crashing at least one mail system and inspired widespread
resentment among those who pay for each message they have downloaded.

Eric Raymond, you listening?

Lazlo Nibble

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Mar 31, 1993, 3:28:39 PM3/31/93
to
jf...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Joel Furr) writes:

> In the sober light of day, I'm laughing as I re-read the comments on the
> March 30 ARMM Massacre. Last _night_, on the other hand, I had a mental
> image of a machine sitting atop a hill, making a low droning sound,
> releasing infinite numbers of Frankenstein's Monsters on the surrounding
> environs.

I had that same image *and* was laughing. If I was a drinking man, I'd
have turned up the Jackie Gleason CD and enjoyed a martini on the porch
with a self-satisfied grin smeared all over my face.

Cosmic justice is dreadfully entertaining.

--
Lazlo (la...@triton.unm.edu)

Eli Brandt

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Mar 31, 1993, 11:29:05 PM3/31/93
to
(sorry, no fan group added here (yet))

[we need a Jargon entry]
Hey, a measly Jargon entry? I say this goes in with Mabel.

> This produced a flood of messages in which each header took up several
> screens and each message id got longer and longer and longer and each
> subject line started wrapping around five or six times.

So, does anyone have the Certified Largest and Hairiest ARMM Post?
I'd like a copy for posterity's sake, but the feed here doesn't seem
to have any with a full five wrappages.

This could serve as a litmus post for another current net.issue:
somebody send a copy in to rec.humor.funny. If Maddi doesn't find
*this* funny, we know it's time for a new moderator.

PGP 2 key by finger or e-mail
Eli ebr...@jarthur.claremont.edu


Eli Brandt

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Apr 1, 1993, 3:59:48 AM4/1/93
to
In article <1993Apr1.0...@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> jf...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Joel Furr) writes:
>Mabel?

Mabel the Swimming Wonder Monkey, killed in her prime. (I guess)
This tale of woe is actually not in the Folklore section, as I thought,
but under the entry for :scratch monkey:. So I guess an entry would
be sufficient...

You know, that should have been
alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm

Mike Lazaro

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Apr 1, 1993, 11:53:08 AM4/1/93
to
In article <1993Mar31....@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> jf...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Joel Furr) writes:
>
>:ARMM: n. A USENET posting robot created by Dick Depew of Munroe Falls, Ohio.
> Originally intended to serve as a means of controlling posts through
> anon servers (see also {anon servers}). Transformed by programming
> ineptitude into a monster of Frankenstein proportions, it broke loose
> on the night of March 31, 1993 and proceeded to spam news.admin.policy
> with something on the order of 200 messages in which it attempted, and
> failed, to cancel its own messages. This produced a recursive chain
> of messages each of which tacked on:
>
> * another "ARMM:" onto the subject line
> * a meaningless "supersedes" header line
> * another character in the message id (producing message ids several
> lines long)
> * a ^L
>
> This produced a flood of messages in which each header took up several
> screens and each message id got longer and longer and longer and each
> subject line started wrapping around five or six times. ARMM was
> accused of crashing at least one mail system and inspired widespread
> resentment among those who pay for each message they have downloaded.
>

"Just between you and me, bub..." he whispered, "that's what we programmers
like to call an..."

Then he silently looked toward the heavens and called upon the power of
sysadmins long passed, the will of a thousand heroes, and that really mean dog
down the street that likes to eat innocent humans...and in a fit of rage,
yelled into the ears of the shadowy figure...

"AN INFINITE LOOP! DIDN'T YOU FIGURE IT OUT EVENTUALLY?? MY GOSH, MAN...
DIDN'T YOU TRY TO STOP IT? CONTROL-C!! CONTROL-C!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!"

And he ran off once again, back to his terminal, and back to his normal self,
leaving the effects of his latent inner personality to echo through the cables
of the network...

*****************************************************************************

My humblest apologies, but it seemed a keen subject for writing. I am truly
sorry, though I hope everyone enjoyed my short feature.

mike

Joel Furr

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Apr 1, 1993, 1:19:43 PM4/1/93
to
In article <C4srn...@news.claremont.edu> ebr...@jarthur.claremont.edu (Eli Brandt) writes:
>In article <1993Apr1.0...@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> jf...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Joel Furr) writes:
>>Mabel?
>
>Mabel the Swimming Wonder Monkey, killed in her prime. (I guess)
>This tale of woe is actually not in the Folklore section, as I thought,
>but under the entry for :scratch monkey:. So I guess an entry would
>be sufficient...

Oh, right. Dick should have mounted a scratch monkey before unleashing ARMM.

>You know, that should have been
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm

ARRRGH! Damn, I wish I'd thought of that.

Jonathan M Lennox

unread,
Apr 1, 1993, 1:11:22 PM4/1/93
to
>You know, that should have been
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm

No no no...

alt.fan.dick-depew
alt.fan.dick-depew.armm
alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm
alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm
alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm
alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm
alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm
alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm
alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm
alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm
alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm
etc...

We'd finally satisfy the people who complain that the
alt.foo.bar.bar.bar groups aren't real hierarchies...

--
Jonathan Lennox
jm...@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu

(NOTE: This is a joke! Do NOT really create these groups!)

Jeff DelPapa

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Apr 1, 1993, 2:53:48 PM4/1/93
to
In article <1993Apr1.1...@sarah.albany.edu> ml7...@eve.albany.edu (Mike Lazaro) writes:
>In article <1993Mar31....@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> jf...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Joel Furr) writes:
>>
>>:ARMM: n. A USENET posting robot created by Dick Depew of Munroe Falls, Ohio.
>> Originally intended to serve as a means of controlling posts through
>> anon servers (see also {anon servers}). Transformed by programming
>> ineptitude into a monster of Frankenstein proportions, it broke loose
>> on the night of March 31, 1993 and proceeded to spam news.admin.policy
>> with something on the order of 200 messages in which it attempted, and
>> failed, to cancel its own messages. This produced a recursive chain
>> of messages each of which tacked on:
>>
>> * another "ARMM:" onto the subject line
>> * a meaningless "supersedes" header line
>> * another character in the message id (producing message ids several
>> lines long)
>> * a ^L
>>
>> This produced a flood of messages in which each header took up several
>> screens and each message id got longer and longer and longer and each
>> subject line started wrapping around five or six times. ARMM was
>> accused of crashing at least one mail system and inspired widespread
>> resentment among those who pay for each message they have downloaded.
>>
>
>"Just between you and me, bub..." he whispered, "that's what we programmers
>like to call an..."
>

Finally an excuse to dredge up an old joke...

Question: are all odd numbers prime?

mathametician: 3's odd and prime, 5's odd and prime, 7's odd and
prime, 9's -> No

physicsist: 3's o+p, 5's o+p, 7's o+p, 9's experemental error, 11's o+p...

engineer: 3 o+p, 5 o+p, 7 o+p, 9 o+p, 11 o+p,...

economist: 2's o+p, 4's o+p,...

programmer: 3's o+p, 5's o+p, 7's o+p, 7's o+p, 7's o+p...

<dp>

Richard M. Hartman

unread,
Apr 1, 1993, 7:22:23 PM4/1/93
to
Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck. Stooges are slowing up our needs for _ears_.


>>What's worse is that Mr. Depew has just started a new "cascade" which
>>will terrorize the net for decades.
>>
>> -- K.
>>
>> What a waste of bandwidth.
>
>Yep.
>
>I'd have thought that this was an April Fools joke of dubious humor, only
>Dick Depew blew it by triggering the Robot of Doom a day early.

Oops.

j...@cmkrnl.com

unread,
Apr 1, 1993, 10:41:31 PM4/1/93
to
In article <1993Apr1.1...@sarah.albany.edu>, ml7...@eve.albany.edu
(Mike Lazaro) writes:
> "Just between you and me, bub..." he whispered, "that's what we programmers
> like to call an..."
>
> Then he silently looked toward the heavens and called upon the power of
> sysadmins long passed, the will of a thousand heroes, and that really mean dog
> down the street that likes to eat innocent humans...and in a fit of rage,
> yelled into the ears of the shadowy figure...
>
> "AN INFINITE LOOP! DIDN'T YOU FIGURE IT OUT EVENTUALLY?? MY GOSH, MAN...
> DIDN'T YOU TRY TO STOP IT? CONTROL-C!! CONTROL-C!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Nah. An infinite loop, as the term is usually applied, would have generated
an unlimited number of messages from a single input. Or an unlimited number
of cancels from a single input. Or something like that.

That's not what happened here. This was more in the nature of recursion, with
the "stack" stored in the message itself. The result was a sort of a software
laser... an amplifier connected in positive-feedback mode.

Granted that both "unbounded recursion" and "infinite loop" involve executing
the same code over and over, but in unbounded recursion, some aspect of the
*data* is different each time... as it was here.

(A *true* software laser, involving *two* sites bouncing messages (and copies
thereof, and copies of the copies, ..., at each other, happened a few years
ago...)

--- Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Systems, San Diego CA
Internet: j...@cmkrnl.com Uucp: uunet!cmkrnl!jeh CIS: 74140,2055

Dik T. Winter

unread,
Apr 1, 1993, 7:53:38 PM4/1/93
to
In article <lassehp-01...@odin.imv.aau.dk> las...@imv.aau.dk (Lasse Hiller|e Petersen) writes:
> >Subject: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: distribution "ARMM" repo


rt
>
We are starved here. We still do truncate Subject lines at 255 chars. So we
have at most:
> >Subject: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARMM: ARM

And we do not yet have the alt.fan.dick-depew newsgroup. ARGH

--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; e-mail: d...@cwi.nl

Peter Gutmann

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Apr 2, 1993, 10:08:15 AM4/2/93
to
In <1993Apr1.1...@cmkrnl.com> j...@cmkrnl.com writes:

>(A *true* software laser, involving *two* sites bouncing messages (and copies
>thereof, and copies of the copies, ..., at each other, happened a few years
>ago...)

It's happened here too - a message had some sort of extremely broken header
when sent to the US, and was bounced back. Some misconfigured mailer and/or
the broken header then caused it to be resubmitted for transmission to the
US. It was bounced back. It was resent. Every time it was resent it
acquired another hundred bytes or so of header. By the time it was zapped
it was (supposedly) over a MB in size.

What makes this really scary is that the monopoly which controls NZ's
link to the outside world charges for email at the (then) rate of $50/MB,
and this message must have pinged back and forth many, many times to grow
to the size it was at when it was finally killed. I don't think anyone
ever dared to calculate the size of the bill the sender would have been hit
with....

Peter.
--
pg...@cs.aukuni.ac.nz||p_gu...@cs.aukuni.ac.nz||gutm...@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
pet...@kcbbs.gen.nz||pe...@nacjack.gen.nz||pe...@phlarnschlorpht.nacjack.gen.nz
(In order of preference - one of 'em's bound to work)
-- Surgeon-General's Warning: Intel inside! --

Mike Lazaro

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Apr 2, 1993, 10:59:34 AM4/2/93
to
In article <1993Apr1.1...@cmkrnl.com> j...@cmkrnl.com writes:
>> "AN INFINITE LOOP! DIDN'T YOU FIGURE IT OUT EVENTUALLY?? MY GOSH, MAN...
>> DIDN'T YOU TRY TO STOP IT? CONTROL-C!! CONTROL-C!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!"
>
>Nah. An infinite loop, as the term is usually applied, would have generated
>an unlimited number of messages from a single input. Or an unlimited number
>of cancels from a single input. Or something like that.
>
>That's not what happened here. This was more in the nature of recursion, with
>the "stack" stored in the message itself. The result was a sort of a software
>laser... an amplifier connected in positive-feedback mode.
>
> --- Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Systems, San Diego CA
>Internet: j...@cmkrnl.com Uucp: uunet!cmkrnl!jeh CIS: 74140,2055

Obviously, you didn't have to watch ARMM scroll across your screen thousands of
times reading news at 2400 baud in the middle of the night...;) Thus, my
infinite loop simile came into being...

I stand corrected, so I think I'll sit down now--
mike

Dan Hoey

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Apr 2, 1993, 11:06:03 AM4/2/93
to
ebr...@jarthur.claremont.edu (Eli Brandt) writes:

> You know, that should have been
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm

Given the ramifications of the recent escapade,

alt.fan.dick-depew.armm:armm:armm:

would be more appropriate. If you don't know why, look for

alt.fan.enya.puke.puke.pukeSender:

in the alt-config-guide FAQ.

Dan Hoey
Ho...@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil

James W. Birdsall

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Apr 2, 1993, 7:10:47 PM4/2/93
to
In article <1993Apr2.1...@cs.aukuni.ac.nz> pg...@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) writes:
>In <1993Apr1.1...@cmkrnl.com> j...@cmkrnl.com writes:
>
>>(A *true* software laser, involving *two* sites bouncing messages (and copies
>>thereof, and copies of the copies, ..., at each other, happened a few years
>>ago...)
>
>It's happened here too - a message had some sort of extremely broken header
>when sent to the US, and was bounced back. Some misconfigured mailer and/or
>the broken header then caused it to be resubmitted for transmission to the
>US. It was bounced back. It was resent. Every time it was resent it
>acquired another hundred bytes or so of header. By the time it was zapped
>it was (supposedly) over a MB in size.

A couple months ago, my system was involved in a three-point closed
loop. I noticed some mail queued up that I couldn't account for (I'm the
only user here, and I have few enough feeds that I can keep track of what's
going where and why). Checking the logs, I noticed that it was coming from
system A (name changed to protect the guilty) and going to B!A!news. I
decided that, based on the addresses, there probably wasn't a privacy issue
and there certainly was something fishy going on, so I looked at the
messages.
I found a hundred or so lines of header indicating that the message had
looped through me quite a few times. The content was some sort of
software-generated success message which I don't remember the details of
anymore. I determined that it wasn't my problem, sent a copy of a
representative message (there were a dozen or so looping) to the sysads
of A and B with an explanatory note, and deleted them. Fortunately both A
and B are local phone calls, so I wasn't out any money.

B and A also had some fun when B was setting up Smail3. The user/sysad
of B had configured smail so that his smart-mail site was A, and had attempted
to configure smail to use a UUCP routing file, but something about that part
failed. So, when he sent a message to C!somebody, this happened: smail
couldn't find the routing file, so it forwarded the message to
A!C!somebody. However, A knew that C was attached to B, so it forwarded the
message back to B!C!somebody. smail still couldn't find the routing
table...
He finally found out about the problem when the message reached the
hop-limit AND WAS RETURNED THROUGH ALL THE BOUNCES IT HAD TAKEN!
Oops. :)

--
James W. Birdsall jwbi...@picarefy.picarefy.com
Compu$erve: 71261,1731 GEnie: J.BIRDSALL2
"For it is the doom of men that they forget." -- Merlin

Jonathan O'Donnell

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Apr 3, 1993, 6:20:11 AM4/3/93
to
jf...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Joel Furr) writes:

>In article <AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...@redpoll.neoucom.edu> r...@redpoll.neoucom.edu (Richard E. Depew) writes:
>>Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (tm) by ARMM5. Press 'n' to skip.

NO, DON'T PRESS 'N'. Not yet, anyway.

>>
>>Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (tm) by ARMM5. Press 'n' to skip.

Just bear with me for a few more. Theres is a point to this,
but not much of a point.


>>
>>Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (tm) by ARMM5. Press 'n' to skip.

One more to go.


>>
>>Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (tm) by ARMM5. Press 'n' to skip.

Wasn't that fun?
The other 40 <ctrl L>'s have been deleted for your sanity.
Cascades, anyone?

Jona...@RMIT.edu.au

Eric S. Raymond

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Apr 3, 1993, 4:21:48 PM4/3/93
to
In <1993Mar31....@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> Joel Furr wrote:
> Eric Raymond, you listening?

Sure am. This'll go in 2.9.13, as I just froze 12.
--
Eric S. Raymond <e...@snark.thyrsus.com>

Joel Furr

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Apr 3, 1993, 8:39:37 PM4/3/93
to
In article <1l0NQj#5TsD416MX78C1NXFwz3GQ41j=e...@snark.thyrsus.com> e...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
>In <1993Mar31....@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> Joel Furr wrote:
>> Eric Raymond, you listening?
>
>Sure am. This'll go in 2.9.13, as I just froze 12.

Great. When's 12 gonna be released?

Andy Linton

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Apr 4, 1993, 4:36:43 PM4/4/93
to

In article <1993Apr2.1...@cs.aukuni.ac.nz>, pg...@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) writes:

|> What makes this really scary is that the monopoly which controls NZ's
|> link to the outside world charges for email at the (then) rate of $50/MB,
|> and this message must have pinged back and forth many, many times to grow
|> to the size it was at when it was finally killed. I don't think anyone
|> ever dared to calculate the size of the bill the sender would have been hit
|> with....

Just a little clarification about the "monopoly which controls NZ's link to
the outside world" and charging.

The figure of NZ$50/MB (which is around US$25/MB) is just plain horse shit.
The link across the Pacific from NZ to Palo Alto is charged back to each
institution that uses it at a rate of between NZ$2.50 and NZ$4.00 per MB during
the day and between 50c and 80c per MB at night.

Each institution is free to pass on costs/charge their users as they please.
Peter's university at one point may have been charging their users $50/MB but
that is not something forced upon them by the cooperative group, Tuia, which
runs the Pacific link. Incidentally, Auckland University are a prominent member
of this group and as far as I am aware support the charging mechanism that is
in place.

It's not even clear that the sender would have been responsible for the bill
anyway if the misconfiguration was not his or her fault.

Peter Gutmann

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Apr 5, 1993, 7:52:33 AM4/5/93
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In <1pngsr$r...@st-james.comp.vuw.ac.nz> Andy....@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Andy Linton) writes:

>In article <1993Apr2.1...@cs.aukuni.ac.nz>, pg...@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) writes:
>
>> What makes this really scary is that the monopoly which controls NZ's
>> link to the outside world charges for email at the (then) rate of $50/MB,
>> and this message must have pinged back and forth many, many times to grow
>> to the size it was at when it was finally killed. I don't think anyone
>> ever dared to calculate the size of the bill the sender would have been hit
>> with....
>
>Just a little clarification about the "monopoly which controls NZ's link to
>the outside world" and charging. The figure of NZ$50/MB (which is around
>US$25/MB) is just plain horse shit.

I never said *which* monopoly, did I? :-) Anyway, if we're being hit with
a markup of between 1000 and 10,000% (according to your figures) we at
least have the right to grumble about it now and then.



>Incidentally, Auckland University are a prominent member of this group and
>as far as I am aware support the charging mechanism that is in place.

That's hardly surprising, considering the massive profits they're making
off it. Anyway, shouldn't this be in email, or at least nz.general (it'd
make a change from the current news censorship flamefest).

-- Nostalgia isn't what it used to be --

Dave Horsfall

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Apr 5, 1993, 9:15:38 PM4/5/93
to
In article <1993Apr1.1...@cmkrnl.com>,
j...@cmkrnl.com writes:

| (A *true* software laser, involving *two* sites bouncing messages (and copies
| thereof, and copies of the copies, ..., at each other, happened a few years
| ago...)

Yup - I've seen some myself. Many years ago, some newbie user set up
mail to forward to himself on another machine, but quite forgot that
the other machine was forwarding back again. And this was in the days
of before Sendmail (and loop detection)...

Another one involved two "service" accounts, set up to acknowledge whatever
mail they get (for subsequent batch processing etc). Some error somewhere
caused mail to be returned from one server to another. Oops...

--
Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU) VK2KFU @ VK2RWI.NSW.AUS.OC PGP 2.2
da...@esi.COM.AU ...munnari!esi.COM.AU!dave available

Lasse Hiller|e Petersen

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Apr 4, 1993, 10:58:46 AM4/4/93
to
In article <1993Apr1.1...@news.columbia.edu>,

jm...@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Jonathan M Lennox) wrote:
>
> In article <C4srn...@news.claremont.edu> ebr...@jarthur.claremont.edu (Eli Brandt) writes:
> >You know, that should have been
> > alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm
>
> No no no...
>
> alt.fan.dick-depew
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm
> alt.fan.dick-depew.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm.armm
> etc...
*HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA* **GROWL**

> (NOTE: This is a joke! Do NOT really create these groups!)

Perhaps we should ask Dick to modify ARMM to create newgroup messages?
:-) :-) :-) :-)
(Dare I post this, even with smilies? Dick might misinterpret my words
again. Dick: DON*T. DO. IT. THIS. WAS. A. JOKE.)

--
Lasse Hiller|e Petersen*las...@imv.aau.dk ! "Dick Depew ist noch mehr
Department of Information & Media Science ! Affe als irgend ein Affe"
Aarhus University, DENMARK ! -Nietzsche (sort of)

B.M. Buck

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Apr 7, 1993, 1:17:30 AM4/7/93
to

And when is the next edition of TNHD comming out? My current copy of
TNHD is confenient, easy to read, has a nice little bug in it's
pointers, but is only Jargon File 2.9.6! The last copy of the Jargon
file I snagged off the net was 2.9.10, but I still find TNHD more
convenient.

--
-----
Buddha Buck bmb...@ultb.isc.rit.edu
(insert-file ".disclaimer")
"I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV."

Joel Furr

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Apr 7, 1993, 4:12:41 AM4/7/93
to
In article <1993Apr7.0...@ultb.isc.rit.edu> bmb...@ultb.isc.rit.edu (B.M. Buck) writes:
>In article <1993Apr4.0...@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> jf...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Joel Furr) writes:
>>In article <1l0NQj#5TsD416MX78C1NXFwz3GQ41j=e...@snark.thyrsus.com> e...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
>>>In <1993Mar31....@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> Joel Furr wrote:
>>>> Eric Raymond, you listening?
>>>
>>>Sure am. This'll go in 2.9.13, as I just froze 12.
>>
>>Great. When's 12 gonna be released?
>
>And when is the next edition of TNHD comming out? My current copy of
>TNHD is confenient, easy to read, has a nice little bug in it's
>pointers, but is only Jargon File 2.9.6! The last copy of the Jargon
>file I snagged off the net was 2.9.10, but I still find TNHD more
>convenient.

Hmm. Good question, and one I'd like to know the answer of also. Eric
sent me a file when I wrote him to inquire about an FTP site for the
Jargon File that implied that additional printings of the book are an
option if it continues to sell well.


Eric S. Raymond

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Apr 7, 1993, 5:19:07 PM4/7/93
to

Any day now. I unfroze it due to a massive set of corrections and additions
by Steve Summit that came in the day I was planning to release. As soon as
I get these folded in, it'll go out.

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