I'm with Landy on this one, though no one's so far dinging me on this
issue.

This may be the way Listserv's always worked and for all the reasons
Francoise mentioned, worked well.  But maybe it's time for a change.
I've been working with Listserv since 1986, and this behavior only started
causing widespread problems since Sobig and subsequent viruses started
hitting us all.

My major problem with how Listserv deals with non-subscriber attempts to
post or whatever (other than all the extra mail I have to delete as a
listowner) is questions from concerned listowners.

I hate to tell them to just ignore their monitor reports: it might be a
forward or one of the other situations Francoise wrote about.  But
nowdays, chances are that it is a spam/virus and there is nothing they can
or should do about it.  It's hard to justify these spurious 'bounces' to
non-technical users, ie. most of our listowners.

--
Jean Snow  Production Systems Support
Enterprise Information Technology Services
University of Georgia

On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, Landy Manderson wrote:

> Yes, and I can attest to this, given that one of our listowners has routinely
> complained for years to his Chair, Dean, Provost, the campus President, etc.,
> because our "poor security procedures" "allow non-subscriber access" to his
> lists .... based on the fact these addresses constantly show up on the error
> reports.  We're talking written five-page memos demanding to know why I am so
> incompetent that I cannot secure our servers against outside interference.
> It has gotten only more hysterical (and not in a humourous way) as all the
> latest viruses have become entrenched.  This "feature" and the unstoppable
> spam notices have to be my absolute least favorite LISTSERV characteristics.
>
> On Fri, 5 Mar 2004 15:42:52 -0700 Ben Parker said:
> >No.  The listname.autodel file tracks all list-related bounces regardless of
> >whether or not the address is subscribed.  The only time subscription status
> >is important is when the bounce count setting for that list is reached or
> >exceeded and LSV tries to delete the non-subscribed address.  LISTSERV has
> >worked this way for at least the last 10 years, and probably longer.
>