weird email behavior

[gusl]

There's a lot of weird email behavior out there that I don't understand.

Why do you sometimes receive a message through a mailing list where the mailing list's address doesn't show up in the "To" or "CC" headers, but only in the Reply-To? Are these people BCC'ing to the mailing list just to fool my mail filters?

(Not to mention that putting the list's address in the Reply-To will cause "Reply" to reply to all... confusing the poor souls who made absolutely certain that they wouldn't click on "Reply All")

Comments

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

All email headers can be forged. That may just be the way the list munges its outgoing headers. I know some lists do that by default.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

"munges"?

95% of email to that list show the list's email in the "To:" header.

I've observed this pattern of occasional exceptions in several lists.

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

Munge = modify. Implies careless or destructive or a deliberate attempt to obscure.

Do the mails that have the list address in the To header also have the Reply-To? Putting the list address in the Reply-To is standard behavior for some lists, but you might not notice it unless the original sender left the address out of the To and Cc. (Which is valid if slightly unusual behavior.)

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Anonymizing...


X-Gmail-Received: c956bff7fd8a02a13db50e5ad870f83044fec4bb
Delivered-To: me@gmail.com
Received: by 10.65.38.5 with SMTP id q5cs11971qbj;
Wed, 28 Sep 2005 05:39:07 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.36.126.12 with SMTP id y12mr3797117nzc;
Wed, 28 Sep 2005 05:39:07 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <sentto-16220533-62-1127911139-@returns.groups.yahoo.com>
Received: from mx6.daemonmail.net (mx6.daemonmail.net [216.104.160.36])
by mx.gmail.com with ESMTP id 38si379852nza.2005.09.28.05.39.05;
Wed, 28 Sep 2005 05:39:07 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: neutral (gmail.com: 216.104.160.36 is neither permitted nor denied by domain of sentto-16220533-62-1127911139-optimizelife.com@returns.groups.yahoo.com)
DomainKey-Status: good
Received: from n19a.bulk.scd.yahoo.com (n19a.bulk.scd.yahoo.com [66.94.237.48])
by mx6.daemonmail.net (Postfix) with SMTP id 2C1E41DD97
for <@optimizelife.com>; Wed, 28 Sep 2005 05:39:03 -0700 (PDT)
Comment: DomainKeys? See http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=lima; d=yahoogroups.com;
b=axb6FLquHULk0Z4P+hZ7oXCIzCzZ5Q6fR7roxI9qQAeqNEkkKEhKvpgHqNbU1j2eub74BlpIuXhMVt93mABRostdwCFwtIr8adySzqvLs3dBbSy9/noHMaODxYVe2aGX;
Received: from [66.218.69.5] by n19.bulk.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 28 Sep 2005 12:39:01 -0000
Received: from [66.218.66.35] by mailer5.bulk.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 28 Sep 2005 12:39:00 -0000
X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: groups-email
X-Sender: sender
X-Apparently-To: mailing-list@yahoogroups.com
Received: (qmail 2544 invoked from network); 28 Sep 2005 12:38:59 -0000
Received: from unknown (66.218.66.172)
by m29.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 28 Sep 2005 12:38:59 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO userp050.dsl.pipex.com) (62.188.63.50)
by mta4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 28 Sep 2005 12:38:58 -0000
Received: from someserver.co.uk ([192.168.4.10])
by userp050.dsl.pipex.com with esmtp (Exim 4.50)
id 1EKb6O-0003cA-6x; Wed, 28 Sep 2005 13:32:00 +0100
Message-ID: <433A8D42.9080901@pcblokes.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (Windows/20050317)
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
Cc: somedude@gmail.com
References: <e1ekb0x-0003yt-7r@userp050.dsl.pipex.com>
In-Reply-To: <e1ekb0x-0003yt-7r@userp050.dsl.pipex.com>
X-Enigmail-Version: 0.92.0.0
X-Originating-IP: 62.188.63.50
X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:12:0:0
From: Sender
X-Yahoo-Profile: dream_spinner2001
Sender: mailing-list@yahoogroups.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Mailing-List: list mailing-list@yahoogroups.com; contact mailing-list-owner@yahoogroups.com
Delivered-To: mailing list mailing-list@yahoogroups.com
List-Id:

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<mailing-list.yahoogroups.com>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

Anonymizing...


X-Gmail-Received: c956bff7fd8a02a13db50e5ad870f83044fec4bb
Delivered-To: me@gmail.com
Received: by 10.65.38.5 with SMTP id q5cs11971qbj;
Wed, 28 Sep 2005 05:39:07 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.36.126.12 with SMTP id y12mr3797117nzc;
Wed, 28 Sep 2005 05:39:07 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <sentto-16220533-62-1127911139-@returns.groups.yahoo.com>
Received: from mx6.daemonmail.net (mx6.daemonmail.net [216.104.160.36])
by mx.gmail.com with ESMTP id 38si379852nza.2005.09.28.05.39.05;
Wed, 28 Sep 2005 05:39:07 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: neutral (gmail.com: 216.104.160.36 is neither permitted nor denied by domain of sentto-16220533-62-1127911139-optimizelife.com@returns.groups.yahoo.com)
DomainKey-Status: good
Received: from n19a.bulk.scd.yahoo.com (n19a.bulk.scd.yahoo.com [66.94.237.48])
by mx6.daemonmail.net (Postfix) with SMTP id 2C1E41DD97
for <@optimizelife.com>; Wed, 28 Sep 2005 05:39:03 -0700 (PDT)
Comment: DomainKeys? See http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=lima; d=yahoogroups.com;
b=axb6FLquHULk0Z4P+hZ7oXCIzCzZ5Q6fR7roxI9qQAeqNEkkKEhKvpgHqNbU1j2eub74BlpIuXhMVt93mABRostdwCFwtIr8adySzqvLs3dBbSy9/noHMaODxYVe2aGX;
Received: from [66.218.69.5] by n19.bulk.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 28 Sep 2005 12:39:01 -0000
Received: from [66.218.66.35] by mailer5.bulk.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 28 Sep 2005 12:39:00 -0000
X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: groups-email
X-Sender: sender
X-Apparently-To: mailing-list@yahoogroups.com
Received: (qmail 2544 invoked from network); 28 Sep 2005 12:38:59 -0000
Received: from unknown (66.218.66.172)
by m29.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 28 Sep 2005 12:38:59 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO userp050.dsl.pipex.com) (62.188.63.50)
by mta4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 28 Sep 2005 12:38:58 -0000
Received: from someserver.co.uk ([192.168.4.10])
by userp050.dsl.pipex.com with esmtp (Exim 4.50)
id 1EKb6O-0003cA-6x; Wed, 28 Sep 2005 13:32:00 +0100
Message-ID: <433A8D42.9080901@pcblokes.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (Windows/20050317)
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
Cc: somedude@gmail.com
References: <E1EKb0x-0003YT-7R@userp050.dsl.pipex.com>
In-Reply-To: <E1EKb0x-0003YT-7R@userp050.dsl.pipex.com>
X-Enigmail-Version: 0.92.0.0
X-Originating-IP: 62.188.63.50
X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:12:0:0
From: Sender <sender>
X-Yahoo-Profile: dream_spinner2001
Sender: mailing-list@yahoogroups.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Mailing-List: list mailing-list@yahoogroups.com; contact mailing-list-owner@yahoogroups.com
Delivered-To: mailing list mailing-list@yahoogroups.com
List-Id: <mailing-list.yahoogroups.com>
Precedence: bulk
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:mailing-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 13:32:02 +0100
Subject: [mailing-list] Re: MirrorMask
Reply-To: mailing-list@yahoogroups.com
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

[selfishgene.livejournal.com]

Some lists assume that you want to reply to all. For instance I read a particular technical list which often has people requesting guidance. The responses are visible to the list by default. If this were not so then some replies would go only to the person requesting assistance. These replies would not be available in the list archive to be searched later. I often use this archive to answer obscure technical issues rather than ask the list.
I can reply to specific individuals if I make a particular effort to do so. The originals email address is passed through.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

In my ideal world, it would be possible to archive without emailing everyone.

I wish mailing lists, by default, would only notify you when there are new threads. You would only subscribe to the threads that you like (one click)... and if it starts moving off-topic, you could change the subject header, alerting everyone again.
Although the way I filter with GMail, it works out to about the same, thanks to GMail's grouping-by-thread.