Why does private email go to (or cc to) bookofseg?

[SegwayUtah]

Okay, I'm a little concerned. Twice in the last day I have written messages to other SegwayChat members through the "private e-mail" feature here on the website.

I don't know if either of them have gotten through, but I do know that they were either redirected to "segwaychat@bookofseg.com" or cc'd to "segwaychat@bookofseg.com." Why is this? Is this so that the moderators read the private messages and can close down the accounts of abusers? Is it an "unmonitored" account that tracks abusers?

I just always thought the messages were truly private, so it's a bit of a concern. A bit of a really big concern :)

In the meantime, I would recommend that all e-mail sent through the "private e-mail" feature be understood to possibly be "public information." I'm guessing that no one is snooping through messages or anything here, but it's just so big-brotherish :)

Chris

[SegwayUtah]

To help diagnose the problem, here's the e-mail I got "bounced back" after sending a private message through SegwayChat.com:

FROM: postmaster@mail6.safesecureweb.com

"Delivery failed 10 attempts: segwaychat@bookofseg.com

RCPT TO generated following response:
450 <segwaychat@bookofseg.com>: Recipient address rejected: Domain not found

...

To: <segwaychat@bookofseg.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 17:14:26 (GMT)
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-mailer: AspQMail 2.0 4.03 (QSM22AC52F)
Subject: Sent From by SegwayUtah
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Message-Id: <200406101326621.SM01792@MIGHT>


Hello Mr_Laurenzano

You received the following message from: SegwayUtah (<obscured>)

At: http://www.segwaychat.com/forum/

Mr. L,

Could you send me a copy of the special olympics "Segway" torch video?

Thanks so much,

Chris"

I hope this helps diagnose whatever the problem is.

Chris

[RAG1247]

how do you know this is happening?????

if you are correct, it's wrong, really wrong

Richard
Ft. Lauderdale
http://www.sonyguy.com/stars_rag2.gif[/img=left] [i]If you can’t change the people around you, change the people around youhttp://www.sonyguy.com/stars2.gif

[SegwayUtah]

quote:Originally posted by RAG1247

how do you know this is happening?????

if you are correct, it's wrong, really wrong

Rag,

Send an e-mail to me or anyone else through the forum (unless the code there gets changed before you have a chance to) and as long as the bookofseg.com domain doesn't come back up you'll get a bounceback message from the failed cc.

Actually, it's a "blind carbon copy" -- a separate message sent; the other e-mail address doesn't show in the header that way. It's done through an ASP component called ASPMAil (sent through a mailqueue)

Chris

P.S.

In fact, e-mail me through the private message feature and I'll send you a copy -- if the e-mails are getting through and this isn't just all some big mistake where all e-mails are getting misdirected. :)

[RAG1247]

quote:Originally posted by SegwayUtah

quote:Originally posted by RAG1247

how do you know this is happening?????

if you are correct, it's wrong, really wrong

Rag,

Send an e-mail to me or anyone else through the forum (unless the code there gets changed before you have a chance to) and as long as the bookofseg.com domain doesn't come back up you'll get a bounceback message from the failed cc.


Actually, it's a "blind carbon copy" -- a separate message sent; the other e-mail address doesn't show in the header that way. It's done through an ASP component called ASPMAil (sent through a mailqueue)

Chris

P.S.

In fact, e-mail me through the private message feature and I'll send you a copy -- if the e-mails are getting through and this isn't just all some big mistake where all e-mails are getting misdirected. :)


Chris upon seeing your post I immediately sent a private email to you

Richard
Ft. Lauderdale
http://www.sonyguy.com/stars_rag2.gif[/img=left] [i]If you can’t change the people around you, change the people around youhttp://www.sonyguy.com/stars2.gif

[SegwayUtah]

quote:Originally posted by RAG1247

Chris upon seeing your post I immediately sent a private email to you

Got it, and replied to you. I'm also going to private-message you with a test message. I hope this was all just a mistake, or some misguided attempt at screening out abusers. I can't imagine that anyone would have "bad intent" in setting that up that way.

Chris

[RAG1247]

messages have been sent to you

earlier tonight I sent a private message to deviant and after I went to bed, hours later I received message about undeliverable mail to segwaychat@bookof seg, etc.

it almost looks like bcc's are sent somewhere else and the only way we knew tonight is that something is wrong with bookofseg. what we don't know is how many other bcc are being sent and received.

I will ask Frank what is going on, but initial thought is this is terribly wrong if one is sending private email and others are getting copies

Richard
Ft. Lauderdale
http://www.sonyguy.com/stars_rag2.gif[/img=left] [i]If you can’t change the people around you, change the people around youhttp://www.sonyguy.com/stars2.gif

[SegwayUtah]

quote:Originally posted by RAG1247

messages have been sent to you

earlier tonight I sent a private message to deviant and after I went to bed, hours later I received message about undeliverable mail to segwaychat@bookof seg, etc.

it almost looks like bcc's are sent somewhere else and the only way we knew tonight is that something is wrong with bookofseg. what we don't know is how many other bcc are being sent and received.

I will ask Frank what is going on, but initial thought is this is terribly wrong if one is sending private email and others are getting copies

Richard,

Actually, the creepy thing is that the e-mails aren't even being sent as BCC's. I could understand them being sent as a CC, where the name of the "other" recipient would show up for the recipient. Using BCC, a copy would get sent to another recipient for "safekeeping." But these messages are actually being sent at least _twice_, once to the original recipient, and then again programatically to another party. Not even the original recipient e-mail address is in the main headers--it's a separate e-mail. Weird.

Anyway, I hope we get this fixed. I don't know if we'll ever be able to "trust" the private e-mail, but it would be nice to hear official word that our e-mails were no longer (accidentally or not) being "copied" to third parties.

Chris

[ftropea]

Hello,

No, emails messages are definitely not being monitored. What I tried to do (still trying to do) is configure the forum to catch users who SPAM other members. One idea I had was to set a counter, and at some maximum number (say more than 10 emails in one day), then the moderators would get an alert via email with the message header indicating the name of the possible abuser. Another idea was just to keep sending message headers of all emails sent with the idea that if you saw lots of emails being generated in a short period of time, then there could *possibly* be some spamming going on, although it's still not fool-proof. I'm configuring it to send just headers, but originally didn't know how to truncate the emails down. (I've got that working now too.)

I used an old email addy for testing purposes which I had on the bookofseg site.. but it obviously doesn't work anymore.

Anyway, I'm still struggling with a solution as we now had three instances in the last week of members creating accounts and then systematically emailing members with spammish stuff (like the Viagra emails - except this was for a health supplement.)

If you have any ideas, please send them my way. Also, I'm sorry if this made anyone panic! No bad intentions behind any of it!

Regards,

Frank A. Tropea

[/sc] Admin - "Keep your wheels on the ground!" - Contact Me (http://www.segwaychat.com/forum/pop_mail.asp?id=2)

[RAG1247]

quote:Originally posted by ftropea

Hello,

No, emails messages are definitely not being monitored. What I tried to do (still trying to do) is configure the forum to catch users who SPAM other members. One idea I had was to set a counter, and at some maximum number (say more than 10 emails in one day), then the moderators would get an alert via email with the message header indicating the name of the possible abuser. Another idea was just to keep sending message headers of all emails sent with the idea that if you saw lots of emails being generated in a short period of time, then there could *possibly* be some spamming going on, although it's still not fool-proof. I'm configuring it to send just headers, but originally didn't know how to truncate the emails down.

I used an old email addy for testing purposes which I had on the bookofseg site.. but it obviously doesn't work anymore.

Anyway, I'm still struggling with a solution as we now had three instances in the last week of members creating accounts and then systematically emailing members with spammish stuff (like the Viagra emails - except this was for a health supplement.)

If you have any ideas, please send them my way. Also, I'm sorry if this made anyone panic! No bad intentions behind any of it!

Regards,

Frank A. Tropea

[/sc] Admin - "Keep your wheels on the ground!" - Contact Me (http://www.segwaychat.com/forum/pop_mail.asp?id=2)



Thank you Frank

Richard
Ft. Lauderdale
http://www.sonyguy.com/stars_rag2.gif[/img=left] [i]If you can’t change the people around you, change the people around youhttp://www.sonyguy.com/stars2.gif