[geeks] A special powful tool

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Sat, 31 Aug 2002, Bill Bradford wrote:

> Ignore this; someone apparently has the virus that causes their
> Outlook setup to send mail out with the From: address set to be
> other people in their address book.
>
> I'm *SO* tempted to block all mail from aol.com.

I've thought the same thing, except for two things:
  1) There are quite a few people who started out clueless and using AOL
     who subsequently acquired clue but didn't want to go through the
     trouble of teaching their clueless friends how to reach them at their
     new address.
  2) In my past life as an ISP mail admin, I got to deal with AOL before
     they got their spam problem under control.  As much as everyone gives
     them hell, they are easily the -most- responsive of any large ISP.
     If you tell them that one of their users is being a twit, $user will
     lose access within the hour, pending a good explanation.
  3) SWMBO would kill me, as her tiny company[1] gets a lot of business
     from folks whose email addresses reside with aol.com.


[1] She and some friends of hers at MIT make clothing to pay the bills.
    They call themselves the "Tech-Style Engineers".  They specialize in
    "period clothing" and costumes for renaissance faires, but also make
    mundane things like blouses and bathing suits.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke
   > Can you SysAdmins tell me what might go on in a typical day?
   Hours of endless frustration punctuated by moments of sheer terror.
                                 --Saul Tannenbaum (in the Monastery)