A bogon X-DEL JOB entered BITNET about 17:00 CDT today. What seems to be the
most likely explanation as far as I can tell is that the job was a victim of
spool file corruption at its origin; however, I can't totally rule out that
LISTSERV generated it through some unknown set of circumstances (though this
is certainly quite unlikely). The job was supposed to be a simple one from
LISTSERV@TAMVM1:
 
 X-FOR AH491D@PANAM1 SIGNOFF * FWDED=2 (NETWIDE
 
However, the following lines somehow worked their way in to the ORIGINAL job,
as distributed to all sites:
 
 LISTSERV@UGABUS                 [obviously a bogus line]
 DIST2                           [bad news!!!!]
 
This resulted redistribution of the X-FOR command BY every site TO every site,
resulting in 263 sites causing one 263-site distribution each (a hell of a
lot of files).
 
By this time, I think the jobs have slowed to a trickle in the US and I
imagine most of the traffic generated by this freak occurrence is history.
However, overseas sites may still have the original job or a close
descendant of it waiting to have us all signoff this blasted user once more,
so you may wish to check LISTSERV's RDR. I suppose the simple, 7-record jobs
with only the X-FOR command will continue to show up sporadically for some
hours.
 
David Boyes of Rice and Tom Spellman of Texas A&M and the U.H. staff helped
track the problem and halt the flow of these jobs into and out of Texas.
Thanks to all who checked their rdr's and cleaned up what they could after
hearing of this from us. Thanks to Eric for his assistance at 4:00 am his time
and for correcting me (as I'm sure he will ;)) if I don't know what I'm talking
about ;). Sorry we couldn't get the word out sooner or plug this up before
the job escaped.
 
--Shane