> >The only thing I can think of that will cause someone to get mail from a > >list they are not subscribed to is that they are still subscribed to the > >list under another user id or someone else is forwarding the mail to > >them. > > I sometimes get mail sent to [log in to unmask] which is clearly > addressed to someone else, a Ms. Silverstein, but who she is or how my > address got on the machine I don't know. There is no reply to mail > addressed to [log in to unmask], and telnetting to port 25 doesn't > seem to provide any useful information. It appears that there must be > some program there that collects email addresses and installs them as > aliases, but I can't imagine why. LOC.GOV is the US Library of Congress. While I have nothing to do with its operation, I have encountered MAIL.LOC.GOV before. I believe that it is a Softswitch Central gateway. Softswitch Central is a mail gateway that connects many different kinds of email systems. It uses the IBM SNADS 8x8 addressing scheme -- an 8 character DEN (Distribution Entity Name) or userid and an 8 character DGN (Distribution Group Name) or node name. Since many addresses won't fit into 8x8, Softswitch has an autoregistration function that will automatically assign a DEN and DGN for the From address in incoming messages, so that the recipient can reply. So if you ever sent mail to anyone at MAIL.LOC.GOV, or even to a list that somone from MAIL.LOC.GOV was subscribed to, you could be in their Softswitch directory. Then all it would take is someone trying to send to Ms. Silverstein selecting your directory entry by mistake. Roger Fajman Telephone: +1 301 402 4265 National Institutes of Health BITNET: RAF@NIHCU Bethesda, Maryland, USA Internet: [log in to unmask] Postmaster for CU.NIH.GOV/NIHCU, LIST.NIH.GOV/NIHLIST, WEB.NIH.GOV, NIH3PLUS