Some of you have noticed that mail from various mailing lists
to [log in to unmask] is being resent back to the list by
[log in to unmask] (SMTP MAIL FROM address).  This may
result in a rejection message to the list owner or "digest detected"
error to the LISTSERV(tm) administrator or, if the daily threshold
had been exceeded since the message originally was distributed it
might result in an old message being resent to the list.

   This problem was reported last week.  The UND.NODAK.EDU system
suffered a catastrophic failure around the 1st of the month.  I'm
sorry I didn't think to send a note to LSTSRV-L earlier as I
first started to see these when digests got sent back to LISTSERV.

   I got a note from Gordon, the UND.NODAK.EDU system administrator,
on March 11 about what is happening:

"It is a side effect of the restore process.  Last week we
kept a copy of each mail that came through the system.  This
week with our restored mailboxes we are resending those
messages using "sendmail -t < messageid.txt", which does
improperly read the "to" line from the body of the message
rather that the "smtp to".  I have attached a copy of the
message you refered to below.  These are being resent from
[log in to unmask]  Perhaps blocking that address
for the remainder of the week would be an option for you.
By next monday we should be working at the exceptional level
that I imagine you have come to expect from the Netscape
Internet Messaging Server."

   Apparently they were unable to capture the RCPT TO addresses
or to filter out the non-UMail messages.  And I don't know of a way
to block the SMTP MAIL FROM address (the internal headers are all
exactly as they were distributed with a new Received: header tacked
on).

   As you may know, LISTSERV(tm) maintains a signature for
messages received (up to the "Daily-Threshold" I think) and checks
this list for duplicates.  The good news is that on lists where you
haven't received that number of messages since the first time the
message was sent to the list then this should be detected as a
duplicate.  The server also is "playing back" the messages with the
headers as it received them so that makes this a bit confusing.

   I hope that helps clear up any mysteries but I realize
it won't relive the misery.  ;-)  I'm sure Gordon and the
folks at UND are working as quickly as possible to get things
back to normal.  I'm told they hope to be done processing the
pending mail by the morning of March 13, 2002.

   If you'd like to contact the system administrator directly
please contact Gordon Christensen, [log in to unmask] .  I think
in some cases he's blocked mail to some of the lists.  But
you can understand they are very busy right now too.

   Marty