Point taken - regarding spamming.

Let me say in my defense that this is an announce only mailing list - that
users must subscribe to - we guarantee 1 email a week (and only one) dealing
the the Gallup Poll results.  The request to "hide" the from is driven by
our marketing guys - and included in the email are explicit instructions
about the unsubscribe.  But this is by no means a spam.

-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2000 11:01 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc: LISTSERV give-and-take forum
Subject: Re: Changing the TO: Field


On Mon, 02 Oct 2000 10:19:07 CDT, No Name <[log in to unmask]>  said:
> That is the name of the list and the machine name that LISTSERV is running
> on.  My question is:  is there any way to change the text that shows in
that
> field, or leave the field blank?  I know that if we buy the SMTP add on -
we
> can do a mail merge and put each recipient's name in the to field.  We
> aren't interested in doing that. - We (especially our security admins) are
> just not that excited about broadcasting machine names etc. to the 18,000+
> subscribers we have.  Additionally, it doesn't look the most professional.

Your security admins had better get used to the idea that the machine
name will leak out.

For starters, RFC821 requires that the machine that receives the mail from
you add a Received: tag that will list the IP address and name.  So the
game is up right there - if you send mail out, the receiving end *HAS* to
be able to find at least the IP address out (otherwise the TCP connection
Just Won't Work).  Do us all a favor and make sure you have a working
PTR entry for that IP in the DNS - trying to hide by not having one won't
help, as the Bad Guys will just connect by IP address, but being able to
get the domain/etc is helpful for those of us trying to make things work.

Also, as far as "doesn't look the most professional" - I personally think
it's very *UN*professional to try to disguise where mail is coming from.

Among other things, it *really* torques me off if there's a problem and
I can't find a nodename to send a note to [log in to unmask] to tell
them that they have a problem.  It also makes it a problem if I want to
actually - *gasp* - unsubscribe or something - you *ARE* going to let
people get off the list if they want, right?  If so, they'll need to know
the hostname to send the unsubscribe to....

But then, I've been dealing with E-mail issues for about 15 years now, and
maybe my tolerance for spammers has just been worn down over the last few
years.

No, I'm not saying your organization is spamming - just that trying hard to
hide is a sign of a spammer, and may give your group a bad reputation.
--
                                Valdis Kletnieks
                                Operating Systems Analyst
                                Virginia Tech