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[Rich Salz]

Dave Jones, djones at megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones) asks why comp.lang.c is
getting filled up with messages like:
 > 
 > Subject:  Re: Why NULL is 0
 > 
 > [Non-Deliverable:  User does not exist or has never logged on]
 > 
 > Reply-To: Info-C at BRL.ARPA
 > 
 > Received: From UWAVM(MAILER) by ALASKA with Jnet id 8001
 >           for SXJVK at ALASKA; Sat, 12 Mar 88 10:50 AST
 > Received: by UWAVM (Mailer X1.25) id 5338; Sat, 12 Mar 88 11:49:55 PST
 > Date:         Fri, 11 Mar 88 21:56:46 GMT
 > Reply-To:     Info-C at BRL.ARPA
 > Sender:       Info-C List <INFO-C at NDSUVM1>
 > From:         Doug Gwyn <gwyn at brl-smoke.arpa>
 > Subject:      Re: Why NULL is 0
 > Comments: To: info-c at brl-smoke.arpa
 > To:           Vic Kapella <SXJVK at ALASKA>

The answer is that the comp.lang.c newsgroup is gatewayed into an
Internet mailing list, info-C.  One of the recipients is at BITNET
site.  And when BITNET mail has problems it tends to do, unh, things
that are anti-social to Usenet (if not the rest of the Internet
world :-).  The person in charge, a postmaster at one of the BITNET
sites, found out and shut things off within a day or two, but
that was still too late to prevent about 75 of these messages from
costing Usenet thousands of dollars to transmit.

Yet another argument against unmoderated bidirectional gateways.

The most interesting question, tho, still remains unanswered:  if the
user does not exist, or has never logged in, how did the subscribe
to the INFO-C mailing list?

Speculations, flames, and follow-ups should probably be sent to me.
At any rate, keep them out of the comp.lang.c newsgroup.
	/r$
-- 
Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz at uunet.uu.net.