Mersenne: End of list
This list [EMAIL PROTECTED] is being closed, and posting will no longer be possible. The list will continue as [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you are not on the new list already, please visit: http://hogranch.com/mailman/listinfo/prime thanks, gordon _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: End of list
> I also run a reasonably current version of mailman on my server, and have > sufficient bandwidth and adequate uptime to host this list. My server has > had only a few hours of downtime in the past 3-4 years... I host several > other lists, including a rather busy music list with dozens of posts every > single day, and 200-300 subscribers. Any idea roughly how many subscribers > this list has? I show approximately 13000 posts since I first subscribed > in august(?) 1996 (yes, I have all that in my mail folders). thats an > average of about 4 messages a day, well within reason. Thanks. I will take you up on this offer. I will send you the subscriber lists momentarily. > Converting this list to mailman would simply require getting the current > subscription list in the form of one address per line, and dropping it into > mailman's 'mass subscribe' admin interface a bonus would be getting the > archives in Mailbox format, and dropping them into the pipermail archive > feature, this would create searchable online archives back as far as we care > to go. If you are going to archive and publish past postings, please be sure that any email addresses get obfuscated so that they can't be harvested by spammers. I just switched email addresses because I was getting so much spam, and I would hate to have to do it again. thanks, gordon _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: End of list
> single day, and 200-300 subscribers. Any idea roughly how many subscribers > this list has? There are 700-800 split evenly between the list and the digest. My preference would be to transfer the list to a system running mailman that hosts a number of other lists, and is likely to be reliable over the long term. _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: End of list
FYI. I intend to end this list shortly. When it was established some 10 years ago, other venues for discussing these issues did not exist, and could not easily be created. Now other venues and mailing lists exist. The cost to me of maintaining this list are two fold: - the need to maintain a server connected to the Internet (higher connection costs; difficulty moving from house to house; and need to worry about system reliability and uptime) - time taken upgrading my system (need to upgrade from majordomo to mailman; and costs of maintaining the configuration from one upgrade to the next) Since alternatives exist, I am not making very much of a difference by hosting these lists, and I am doing so at significant cost. Hence my decision to end the list. I will allow discussion of alternative lists people may wish to join before closing this list. thanks, gordon (list admin) _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: Off topic - historical computing manuals
I know there are few people interested in computing history on this list. Would anyone be interested in any of the following historical manuals: Control Data 6400/6500/6600 Computer Systems Reference Manual, 1969 This was the world's first commercial supercomputer and first RISC architecture based machine; designed by Seymour Cray. PDP 11 bus and processor handbooks, ~1973 VAX 11/780 hardware, software, and architecture handbooks, ~1977 Bell System Technical Journal, 1978, Vol 57, No 6, Part 2 This is a special edition devoted to the Unix Time-Sharing System authored by all of the key players; it might be the first major publication exploring Unix in detail, I am not sure. Bell Laboratories Technical Journal, 1984, 63, 8, 2 Another full issue devoted to Unix by key players. The Oak Language and Oak Virtual Machine Specification Release 0.9, 1994 Oak was subsequently renamed Java. I checked with the Computer History musuem (a great place if you have never been), and they didn't want them, but I am having a hard time just throwing them away. Let me know if you are interested. Just give me your address, and I will mail them to you. thanks, gordon _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: Contacting the list admin
Due to the large volume of spam that was being received, I have disabled the [EMAIL PROTECTED] email address. This address was listed in the instructions you received when you first subscribed as a means to reach the list administrator. The new instructions are as follows: If you ever need to get in contact with the owner of the list, (if you have trouble leaving the list, or have questions about the list itself) please follow the instructions listed at http://www.base.com/feedback.html Or you can just email me... thanks and have fun, gordoni list admin _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Emails and virus (slightly OT) :)
> I'll try to keep this a little bit on-topic... Does this mailing list do > any sort of virus scanning? I know you can't post to the list unless you're > actually on the list, but any scanning going on? No there isn't any virus scanning going on. There is however a message limit that tends to block most attachments. FWIW, I work at Postini, http://www.postini.com , a company that provides real time email spam and virus blocking services. Customers simply point their MX records at us, and then we take care of the rest, filtering stuff out, and passing on just the good mail. I don't however run base.com mail through Postini. base.com provides me a portal on the net without the Postini filters in place. This is useful for collecting spam which can then be used to tune Postini's spam filtering engine. gordon _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Is there any life here?
> NO Mail lately, just wanted to know if the list is > active! Yes, but since you only signed up to [EMAIL PROTECTED] in the last hour, it isn't suprizing you haven't seen any yet. The [EMAIL PROTECTED] list which you subscribed to a few days ago, only averages 2-3 (large) messages per week. gordoni (list admin) _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Undecipherable And Bounced Transmission - probable SPAM!
> well, it had forged headers similar to spam Yes. It was spam. My apologies. The annoying thing is it was sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] rather than [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] is supposed to be a secret address that nobody knows about that is the final address majordomo forwards a message to after it has been accepted at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and has made it past the anti-spam features in majordomo designed to block things like this. Unfortunately it looks like sendmail is leaking information in the headers it sends out that makes it possible for people to discover the supposedly secret [EMAIL PROTECTED] address. I've changed things so that the spammers won't be able to use this address for spamming the list any longer. Unfortunately I don't know how to stop the new outgoing address name from leaking out in the headers so that a smart spammer who finds an archived copy of a list message on the web might once again be able to figure out how to spam the list. I am open to suggestions. I use sendmail and majordomo, and my sendmail aliases file looks something like: mersenne: "|/home/gordoni/local/linux/majordomo/wrapper resend -l mersenne mersenne-outgoing-queue99" mersenne-digest: mersenne mersenne-outgoing-queue99: :include:/home/gordoni/local/linux/majordomo-data/lists/mersenne, "|/home/gordoni/local/linux/majordomo/wrapper digest -r -C -l mersenne-digest mersenne-digest-outgoing-queue99" mersenne-digest-outgoing-queue99: :include:/home/gordoni/local/linux/majordomo-data/lists/mersenne-digest Although the queues aren't actually called "-outgoing-queue99". thanks, gordoni (list admin) _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt
Re: Mersenne: Digest #732?
> Was there an issue of the digest numbered 732? (My inbox jumps from 731 to > 733, but I don't think I deleted it or ever got it.) If there wasn't, was it > because of the wacky chaos which occurred in the mailing list? Digest #732 mainly consists of repeat postings. When the list blew up I nuked all the outgoing mersenne related mail, including the digest. If you really want #732, you can temporarily find it, and all other issues of the Mersenne digest at: http://www.base.com/mersenne Note, this is a temporary not a permanent back issue archive. It will be deleted May 19th. gordon _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: Mail loop fixed
Sorry for the mailing loop problem. It should now be fixed. I have also deleted all pending messages the system was still attempting to deliver. If you notice any further serious problems, please contact me +1 650 279 2500. thanks, gordon Anyone interested in the cause of the problem feel read on... My preference is to run on a platform that I have gotten really reliable and secure, than constantly be upgrading to the latest release. But finally, last night, after 3 years of use, I decided it was time to upgrade the mailserver from RedHat Linux 4.1 to 6.2. Or maybe I should really call it CheapBytes Linux 6.2. By default /etc/resolv.conf on RedHat Linux contains a line like: search base.com which says, if it can't find a host with the requested name, try appending "base.com" on to the name, and then try again. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, except that I have sendmail configured to map [EMAIL PROTECTED] to [EMAIL PROTECTED] I have sendmail configured this way, so that every time I have to submit my email address to a website, I can use a names such as [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], and that way keep track of whether anyone is selling my address. The final piece of the puzzle is there is an address on the mersenne list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] which for some time has probably been invalid, but not previously causing any problem. So, what was happening is a message was coming in for the mersenne list, the system would start delivering it to everyone, including [EMAIL PROTECTED], and when it found this address was unresolvable, it would append base.com on to it and try delivering the message to [EMAIL PROTECTED], which because of how I have sendmail configured, would map back onto [EMAIL PROTECTED], and the same message would keep getting reinjected back into the system over and over again. The fix is simply to change /etc/resolv.conf to: search . which is how I had been managing to avoid this problem in RedHat 4.2. gordoni, list admin _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: Re: pi and 4
Aha! You're message was getting blocked because it was larger than 10k in size. This irestriction is intended to help prevent people from sending attachments to the list. Try splitting your message up into several separate parts and sending them to the list individually. gordoni (list admin) _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Email to mersenne
> Anyone know why a email with subject "Re: more info on pi" I sent 24 hrs, > 2-9-00, ago has not appeared on the list? I sent it with a reply all. Then > today, 2-10-00, I forwarded another copy directly to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Another message I sent at the same time titled "Pi and Greek" 2-10-00 > showed up on the list right away. > > Where did the two copies of "Re: more info on pi", 2-9-00, go? You can try sending it to the list again, and cc'ing me at the same time. I can watch and figure out the cause of the problem. There are several possible explanations. The most likely is that you using words like "help" or "subscribe" in the first few lines of your message, and majordomo misidentifies it as a misdirected admin request. gordoni (list admin) _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Mystery message
Paul Derbyshire wrote: > "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" wrote in a message titled "": > > What's with the blank-subject blank message? This is presumably a bug in majordomo (or posibly sendmail). My machine ran out of swap space yesterday (thanks to Netscape chewing up 150M), and majordomo does not appear to fail gracefully under such circumstances. Presumably someone sent a message to the list, and majordomo only managed to half deliver it, sending out the message, but forgetting the subject and contents. gordoni Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Re: Mersenne: HTML posts
BTW, if someone wants to solve this problem, the best way to go about it would be to have the necessary changes integrated back into the baseline release of majordomo. I could then pick up these changes. This way the changes would be stable, and not break as a result of an upgrade to a future version of majordomo. It would also have the big advantage of solving this problem for everyone in the world, rather than just this one list. thanks, gordoni (list admin) Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne: Sign-on letter to Vice President Gore regarding his opposition to African access to essential medicines
equired in the United States. But the larger issue is more basic. Why on earth should Vice President Al Gore or any other US government employee seek to prevent global competition for Taxol, a life saving cancer drug that was invented and developed by the US National Institutes of Health? Taxol was in NIH sponsored Phase III trials before the Bush Administration gave BMS exclusive rights to use NIH research for drug approvals. What is the moral basis for extending the BMS monopoly on Taxol in a country that is so poor? As the Vice President of the United States you are in a position to do much good or much harm in the world. US voters will soon be asked to determine if you should be the next President of the United States. Please explain why they should choose you. Sincerely, James Love Director Consumer Project on Technology Dr. Bernard Pécoul Project Director Access to Essential Drugs Médecins Sans Frontières Joelle Tanguy Executive Director Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres USA Eric Sawyer Executive Director HIV/AIDS Human Rights Project Kim Nichols Development Director African Services Committee, Inc. Bas van der Heide Director Health Action International Europe Beryl Leach Africa Program Coordinator Health Action International Lori Wallach Director Global Trade Watch Professor Richard Laing Boston University Robert Weissman Co-Director Essential Action David Scondras President Search for a Cure Bob Lederer Senior Editor POZ Magazine Steve Suppan, PhD Director of Research Institute for Agriculture and Trade Axel Delmotte Act Up - Paris Professor Patrick Bond University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Public and Development Management Johannesburg, South Africa Clarence Mini, MD Treatment Action Campaign Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa Ellen 't Hoen International Drug Policy Consultant Amsterdam, The Netherlands -- James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology I can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED], by telephone 202.387.8030, by fax at 202.234.5176. CPT web page is http://www.cptech.org >From - Fri May 14 20:19:35 1999 X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 X-Mozilla-Status2: BCC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 19:33:55 -0700 From: Gordon Irlam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.0.27 i586) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Sign-on letter to Vice President Gore regarding his opposition to African access to essential medicines Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit [I provide this list for free. In return I ask that you consider helping me with one of the things that really matters to me...] Why this issue matters to me: Current estimates are 34 million people in Africa have been infected by HIV/AIDS. 12 million of them are already dead. The numbers are only going to rise. The numbers are already staggering. To put them in context, the entire combined civilian and military death toll associated with World War II is variously estimated at around 30 million people. We all need to figure out how to best respond to the alarming spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. The current US government approach of seeing this as an opportunity to maximize drug company profits is totally unacceptable, and must be reversed. Please send your name/city/state/address to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to sign on to the letter to Vice-President Gore below to help reverse this policy. I would be very grateful to you for having done this. many thanks, gordoni (list admin) Original Message From: James Love <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Sign-on letter to Vice President Gore regarding his opposition to African access to essential medicines * Sign-on letter to Vice President Gore regarding his opposition to African access to essential medicines * ** Over the past three years public health groups have repeatedly petitioned Vice President Gore (co-chair of the US/South Africa Binational Commission) and US trade organizations to stop pressuring South Africa and other developing countries over to access to medicines. ** The disputes involve complex intellectual property and trade matters. In essence, the US government is demanding that South Africa, India, Thailand and many other countries not enact provisions in WTO/TRIPS rules on intellectual property that would lower drug prices. The US position is that WTO rules regarding protection of patent rights are not high enough. ** Africa is suffering from a mind boggling public health emer
Mersenne: SurfWatch tester needed
Hi, I reported earlier how SurfWatch was blocking access to all my sites. When I sent out email on this topic, I didn't bother to first communicate with SurfWatch. At the time I was annoyed, and had the attitude: they don't have the courtesy to tell me they have been blocking my sites for the last two years, so why should I bother communicating with them before complaining to the net at large about their practices. Philip Heede of the Mersenne list decided to take up my case with SurfWatch, and as a result I believe I am now unblocked. If someone who uses SurfWatch can confirm for me that the following sites are now accessible: www.base.com www.surf.base.com www.nanodevices.com www.apache.net that would be great. I will then remove my "Censored by SurfWatch" baner from the top of my pages. thanks, gordoni Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne: Blocking of postings
We have taken several new steps to protect ourselves and this list from spam. For some time we have blocked posts from people not listed as list members. If your postings haven't made it to the list in the past, this is probably the reason. You need to make sure your posting address and subscription address match, before your messages will be able to get through. If not, your message gets discarded, without any error message getting sent back to you. We now also block all email from addresses on any of six real time lists of known spam addresses: RBL - static IP spam addresses - http://maps.vix.com/rbl/ ORBS - static IP open relays - http://www.orbs.org/ DUL - dialup IP address blocks - http://maps.vix.com/dul/ DSSL - dialup IP host names - http://www.imrss.org/dssl/ shub-inter.net - open relays - http://www.shub-inter.net/ shub-inter.net - spam IP addresses - http://www.shub-inter.net/ You should receive an error message if you accidentally run into any of these blocks. Additionally, we now block postings with an invalid "From" domain, and messages to the list without any "From:" line, which used to bypass our anti-spam measures. The goal is to significantly cut down on the volume of spam we receive, while minimaly impacting the operation of the list. These are new measures with the possibility of unintended side-effects. The thought of intentionally blocking email generates a fair amount of trepidation on my part. I don't want to accidentally and unknowingly end up blocking legitimate messages. So, if you used to be able to post to the list, but now find yourself unable to do so as a result of these measures, I *want* to know. *Please tell me*. Either send me a message to me from a non-blocked host, relay a message to me via someone else on the list, or phone me at +1 (415) 566 7479. thanks, gordoni (list admin) PS: In other administrative news: we have upgraded to the latest version of majordomo (this allows us to send a verification message before subscribing someone (we were having problems with bogus subscription requests)), we have upgraded to the latest version of sendmail (for improved spam blocking), we have moved our server from a friend's house in Mountain View to my new place in San Francisco, and we switched to a higher speed Internet connection around a month ago. Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Re: Mersenne: Spam
> So far I've seen two messages sent through the list server, both of which > would have been stopped if the server was configured to reject mail > without Sender/From fields. Correct. We have a spam filter in place. It successfully blocks several spam messages sent to the list each day. Unfortunately this filter is not managing to block spams that don't include a From address. Messages without a From address are getting a From address added that make it look like they came from the list, and are then being allowed through by the filter. I need to look into this and try and fix it. > Slight correction, it originated with adsl-209-233-24-120.dsl.pacbell.net, > a dialup connection, with the rest of the headers faked, so it's actually > (in this case) the first of the received lines that are the correct one. No. adsl-209-233-24-120.dsl.pacbell.net is simply another name for mailhost.base.com, the machine hosting the mailing list. It is also not a dialup, but instead a permanent ADSL line. Checking my sendmail logs I can confirm the spam orginally came from 192.90.127.17. www.bull.net. Since Bull is a respected company, either someone broke into their system, or bull doesn't have mail relaying disabled, and someone is simply relaying via there. Sendmail log: Mar 16 21:52:01 acid sendmail[12992]: VAA12992: from=<>, size=2847, class=0, pri =32847, nrcpts=1, msgid=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, proto=ESMTP, rel ay=www.bull.net [192.90.127.17] regards, gordoni (list admin) Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Re: [Meta] List cloggage? was Re: Mersenne: Primes95 for SunOS 4.1.4
Paul Derbyshire wrote: > At 11:16 AM 2/2/99 -0500, I wrote: > >You can always try > > but it only showed up now at 16:37 2/2/99 -0500! Mail slowups at base.com? Nothing out of the ordinary that I am aware of. The mailer delivers to all 470 subscribers sequentially. So, if your name is near the end of the list, and if a many DNS and SMTP timeouts occur before it gets around to delivering to you, it can sometimes take several hours. FWIW, I will be upgrading base.com from a 28.8k analog modem to a 128k/384k+ DSL line in the next month or two. Although I am not sure this will appreciably speed up message delivery. gordoni (list admin)
