Re: [Bug-gnubg] Mailing list problems

[Jim Segrave]

On Fri 22 Aug 2003 (07:18 -0400), Christopher D. Yep wrote:
> Is anyone else having mailing list problems (delays)?  Looking at the low 
> volume for Aug 19 and Aug 20 at 
> http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnubg/2003-08/index.html, I guess it's 
> a problem with the mailing list rather than my mail server.

I'm willing to bet that it's being flooded by sobig viruses. For every
infected machine where the owner has ever mailed the mailing list, you
can expect perhaps 50 emails with the virus to be sent to the mailing
list. You can also expect that several hundred emails will be sent
with a forged from address of the mailing list. The forged from
address will cause bounce messages to go to the mailing list, as well
as the thousands of broken virus scanners which will also send reports 
"your machine tried to send me a virus, please fix it" 

(I would like to beat the writers of those virus screeners over the
head with rolled up copies of email RFC's until they understand how
email works.)

So I'd guess that the mailing list software is being overwhelmed by
infected machines.

-- 
Jim Segrave           address@hidden