On 6/10/02, MaryK wrote:
>Yes, Allyn makes good points, but my guess is that Blake is (and others
>may be) trying to easily identify Tweeters mail w/o having to inspect
>messages headers, etc.

I don't seem to have made myself clear. You CANNOT identify genuine
tweeters mail without inspecting certain specific message headers.
(You don't do it yourself for each message--that's what filters (aka
'rules') are for.)

The worm that pretended to come from Ian used a genuine tweeters
subject line (and body text) from May 17th:

Subject: Re: Common Grackle still there

If all tweeters messages had a tag in the subject line, that tag would
still have been in the subject line used by the worm. So what good
does it do? None. In contrast, no one filtering by the Sender line,
or by one of the List- lines, was ever in any doubt that the message
was not a real tweeters message--it never got sorted into the tweeters
folder in the first place.


> If people are willing to give Blake's suggestion
>a shot, it certainly can't hurt anything.

But it does hurt. It gives people a completely false sense of
security, thereby increasing the odds that a worm will infect them and
propagate. It also uglifies things for the rest of us.

If your house has termites, do you simply paint over the damage? A
subject line tag is low quality paint of a yucky color, and nothing
more.
--
Allyn Weaks allyn at tardigrade.net Seattle, WA Sunset zone 5
Pacific NW Native Wildlife Gardening: http://www.tardigrade.org/natives/
"The benefit of even limited monopolies is too doubtful, to be opposed
to that of their general suppression." Thomas Jefferson