Date: Wed, 1 Jan 97 22:00 EST (0) TABLE OF CONTENTS This is the help file and FAQ for the anon.twwells.com anonymous e-mail and posting service. If you read nothing else from this file, please read the TABLE OF CONTENTS and the INTRODUCTION. (0) TABLE OF CONTENTS (1) INTRODUCTION (1.1) History and purpose. (1.2) Getting help with using the server. (1.3) Some legal annoyances. (1.4) Security, confidentiality, and privacy. (2) USING THE SERVER. (2.1) Quick-start anonymous e-mail. (2.2) Quick-start anonymous posting. (2.3) Making sure that you're really anonymous. (2.4) Server addresses. (2.4.1) Anonymous IDs. (2.4.2) Anonymous posting addresses. (2.4.3) The administrator's personal mailbox. (2.4.4) The mailbox for mail about the anonymous server. (2.4.5) The anonymous ID for mail about the anonymous server. (2.4.6) The address for requesting status about your anonymous ID. (2.4.7) The address for getting the latest help file. (2.4.8) The address for deleting your anonymous ID. (2.5) Server commands. (2.5.1) Setting your nickname. (2.5.2) Turning mail forwarding on and off. (2.5.3) Announcing your mail forwarding status. (2.5.4) Being notified of unforwarded e-mail. (2.5.5) Getting a return receipt for messages sent to the server. (2.5.6) Controlling signature removal. (3) FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS. (3.1) I send mail to the server and nothing ever comes back. Help! (3.2) I send posts to the server but I don't see them on mine. Why? (3.3) I already have an anonymous ID, how come I got another? (3.4) I'm changing my address and want to keep my ID. Can I? (3.5) Can I have one anonymous ID for more than one address? (3.6) When I use your server does it affect my regular mail? (3.7) I sent commands to the server. Why weren't they processed? (3.8) I have a question about your newsgroup.... (3.9) It used to work for me but isn't now. Any ideas? (3.10) Someone is misusing your server. Please put a stop to it. (3.11) I'm being harassed via your server, what can I do? (3.12) I'm being mailbombed (or spammed) through your server. Help! (3.13) I'd like to send to a mailing list using your server. Can I? (3.14) Why did I get this thing about not forwarding blank messages? (3.15) Why did the server cut my post off short? (3.16) Would you add this non support/recovery related newsgroup? (3.17) Why didn't you answer my e-mail? (3.18) I posted and it didn't come out anonymous! Help! (3.19) I'd like to post into an ongoing thread, how? (3.20) Can I send anonymous mail to someone who doesn't have an ID? (4) E-MAIL, THE USENET, AND ANONYMOUS SERVERS. (4.1) E-mail. (4.2) The Usenet. (4.3) Anonymous e-mail. (4.4) Anonymous Usenet posting. (1) INTRODUCTION (1.1) History and purpose. The anon.twwells.com service started out as a server for a single newsgroup, alt.sexual.abuse.recovery, in May of 1992 (which, I believe, makes it the longest running anonymous service). Since then I have added newsgroups, all in the support and recovery areas. This server is intended for use by people who have need of those groups and those who support them. It is not intended for use by people who want to post gifs, exchange warez, send unsolicited advertising, harass other users, and so on. Don't let this put you off. If you feel you *might* be one of the people I intend this server to be used by, odds are you are. I'm only putting this here because I'm getting more and more people trying to use my server for things it wasn't intended for. I'm told that it hasn't been obvious that this server is for a particular group. Now it is. :-) (1.2) Getting help with using the server. There is a person in back of this service. The service itself operates automatically and is just a computer program, so it can't help you with any problems. However, if something goes wrong or if this message does not answer all your questions or if you have suggestions about or comments to make about the service, I would very much appreciate it if you would send me e-mail. I am Bill Wells, bill@twwells.com. You can send me e-mail at this address if you want to. However, if you send your e-mail to admin@anon.twwells.com, I will know that it is about the anonymous message service. You may wish to send me e-mail anonymously. You can do that by sending your message to anon-0@anon.twwells.com. (1.3) Some legal annoyances. This service is run entirely on twwells.com. It is owned, operated, and funded entirely by me. There are no charges or obligations incurred by using this service. Conversely your use of this service is entirely at my discretion; while I don't wish to prevent anyone from using this service if they have need, it is my right to arbitrarily limit, control, or monitor any use of this service. I really hate having to say that but in these days of lawsuit happiness, I have to cover myself legally. :-( Speaking of legalisms, in most states of the US and possibly in other places, mental health professionals are obligated to report any of a number of matters to the authorities. I am not a mental health professional nor associated with that field in any way. I am not obligated by so-called professional ethics to make reports to the authorities, nor do I do so. (1.4) Security, confidentiality, and privacy. In an ideal world, I would be able to provide complete privacy to the users of this service. That is, whatever you send here is seen by no one other than the person you indended it for and the relationship between your ID and your real address is known only to the program and nothing and no one else. This not being that sort of world, I cannot offer privacy via this service. There are a number of reasons for this. First, the communication from your system passes through one or more networks before it gets to my system. If your system administrator is monitoring your e-mail, there's nothing that a service like mine can do to help you. A lesser likelyhood is that your communication is intercepted between your system and mine. This does happen but very rarely. Second, in running this service, invariably bits and pieces of peoples' mail goes in front of my eyes. Similarly, I often have to know what the particular address is that goes with some ID is, in order to resolve problems of one sort or another. Third, in order to protect the integrity of this service, it is necessary that some types of communication be forbidden. I don't have the bandwidth to handle binaries, nor the processing power to let every would-be spammer dump his junk through here, and so on. While a lot of the abuse-detection is automatic, sometimes I have to examine a piece of mail to determine if it is against the purposes this server is intended for. Thus, I do not offer privacy. Instead, what I offer is confidentiality. "Confidentiality" means that only I see these things. "Confidentiality" means I don't use what I see for any other purpose than running this service. There are a small number of circumstances where I may violate your confidentiality. All of them have to do with abuses of the server itself. In all cases, I will release the smallest amount of information needed to deal with the situation. It is also possible that I may be required by the law to release some information. That is, a policeman and his gun may come to me and insist that I give out information. Whether I do or do not depends on whether I agree with their purposes or not. If they're investigating a murder, I'll help. If they're investigating tax evasion, I'll likely wipe the database. :-) (2) USING THE SERVER. (2.1) Quick-start anonymous e-mail. If: o There is an anonymous ID to which you wish to send e-mail. o You don't care too much if you're anonymous to whoever gets your mail OR o You KNOW that the only part of mail messages that you send that contains identifying information is the mail header. Just send some ordinary, everyday, e-mail to their anonymous ID. If you don't already have an anonymous ID, you'll be assigned one. Getting an anonymous ID doesn't change anything about your mail setup; your mail will work just like it did before. It's just an e-mail address on the server's machine that will anonymize and forward mail to your real address. It's assigned for two reasons: first, so that the receiver has a handle for who sent them mail and second, so that he can send e-mail back to you. One detail: if the very first thing you do with the server is send e-mail through it, your ID gets set up to allow mail forwarding. If you send a post or a ping first, it will be set up to not allow it. If you believe that you aren't set up for mail forwarding, just include the line: ANON-Mail: yes *exactly* as you see it, in the next message you send through the server and that'll fix it. You only have to do it once. If you're concerned about the server not providing you with full anonymity, please read section (2.3). (2.2) Quick-start anonymous posting. If: o There is a newsgroup this server serves that you want to post anonymously on. o You don't care too much if you're anonymous when you post OR o You KNOW that the only part of mail messages that you send that contains identifying information is the mail header. Just send some ordinary, everyday, e-mail to newsgroup@anon.twwells.com. "Newsgroup" is just the name of the newsgroup. To post to alt.support.depression, send e-mail to alt.support.depression@anon.twwells.com . Keep in mind that this server only works for a subset of Usenet newsgroups, check section (2.4.2) to see which ones. If you don't already have an anonymous ID, you'll be assigned one. Getting an anonymous ID doesn't change anything about your mail or Usenet setup; they will work just like they did before. It's just an e-mail address on the server's machine that will anonymize and forward mail to your real address. It's assigned for two reasons: first, so that the people reading the newgroup have a handle for who posted the message, and second, and IF you set it up that way, so that people can send you e-mail replies. This server lets you control whether or not you will receive e-mail through the server. If the very first thing you do is send e-mail to someone's anonymous ID, the server will set you up to receive e-mail. If you do anything else, the server will set you up so that you can't get anonymous e-mail through this server. If you want to be sure to get e-mail, just include the line: ANON-Mail: yes *exactly* as you see it, in the next message you send through the server and that'll fix it. You only have to do it once. If you're concerned about the server not providing you with full anonymity, please read section (2.3). (2.3) Making sure that you're really anonymous. There are two parts to e-mail and Usenet news messages: the "header" and the "body". The header is that stuff at the top, before the *first* blank line. That's what the network uses to keep track of mail and news. It contains, among other things, your e-mail address. The main thing the anonymous server does to protect your anonymity is remove the header that's on your message and put in a new one, one that doesn't identify you to anyone but the server itself. However, the body of the message might also contain information that identifies you. The most common way this happens is when your mailer tacks on a "signature"; that's a file of data you set up which can have whatever you want to add to the end of your message. People often put their e-mail address in there. Signatures are generally marked by a line that starts with two hyphens. To assist you in preserving your anonymity, the server will look for a line that starts with that. If it finds one, it'll cut off that line and the rest of the message as well. That's the only thing, other than replacing your mail headers, the server does to your message to hide your identity. If your signature doesn't start with a line that starts with two hyphens or if your mailer does other oddball things, there may be other identifying information in your message. If it's in your signature, you'll need to start the signature with something the server will recognize. If it's elsewhere, you'll have to get your system to not put it there; the server won't do anything about it. An easy way to check your mail for anonymity is to send yourself mail at your anonymous ID. You can then look at what the server has sent and make sure that it's clean. (2.4) Server addresses. These sections describe the various addresses to which you can send e-mail that relates to the anonymous server. (2.4.1) Anonymous IDs. Anonymous IDs looks something like anon-123@anon.twwells.com, where the 123 is a different number for each user of the server. For example, anon-0@anon.twwells.com is the administrator's anonymous ID. If you send e-mail to an anonymous ID and you didn't have an anonymous ID before, you'll get one then. (2.4.2) Anonymous posting addresses. Anonymous posting addresses look like news.group@anon.twwells.com, where news.group is the actual name of the newsgroup. For example, alt.sexual.abuse.recovery@anon.twwells.com is the anonymous posting address for alt.sexual.abuse.recovery. If you send e-mail to an anonymous posting address and you didn't have an anonymous ID before, you'll get one then. Note that you cannot post to all groups with this service; it is limited to the support and recovery groups and not all of those. If there are support and recovery groups not in this list that you wish to post to, drop me a note and I'll see what I can do. Here is the current list of supported groups: alt.abuse.offender.recovery alt.support.grief alt.abuse.recovery alt.support.grief.pet-loss alt.abuse.transcendence alt.support.headaches.migraine alt.recovery alt.support.hearing-loss alt.recovery.aa alt.support.hemophilia alt.recovery.addiction.sexual alt.support.herpes alt.recovery.adult-children alt.support.inter-cystitis alt.recovery.catholicism alt.support.kidney-failure alt.recovery.codependency alt.support.learning-disab alt.recovery.compulsive-eat alt.support.loneliness alt.recovery.na alt.support.marfan alt.sexual.abuse.recovery alt.support.menopause alt.sexual.abuse.recovery.d alt.support.mult-sclerosis alt.support alt.support.non-smokers alt.support.abuse-partners alt.support.ocd alt.support.anxiety-panic alt.support.ostomy alt.support.arthritis alt.support.personality alt.support.asthma alt.support.post-polio alt.support.ataxia alt.support.prostate.prostatitis alt.support.attn-deficit alt.support.psoriasis alt.support.big-folks alt.support.schizophrenia alt.support.breast-implant alt.support.short alt.support.breastfeeding alt.support.shyness alt.support.cancer alt.support.single-parents alt.support.cancer.prostate alt.support.sinusitis alt.support.cerebral-palsy alt.support.skin-diseases alt.support.childfree alt.support.skin-diseases.psoriasis alt.support.chronic-pain alt.support.sleep-disorder alt.support.crohns-colitis alt.support.social-phobia alt.support.depression alt.support.spina-bifida alt.support.depression.manic alt.support.step-parents alt.support.depression.seasonal alt.support.stop-smoking alt.support.dev-delays alt.support.stuttering alt.support.diabetes.kids alt.support.survivors.prozac alt.support.diet alt.support.tall alt.support.diet.rx alt.support.tinnitus alt.support.disabled.artists alt.support.tourette alt.support.disabled.sexuality soc.support.depression.crisis alt.support.dissociation soc.support.depression.family alt.support.divorce soc.support.depression.manic alt.support.dystonia soc.support.depression.misc alt.support.eating-disord soc.support.depression.seasonal alt.support.endometriosis soc.support.depression.treatment alt.support.epilepsy soc.support.fat-acceptance alt.support.ex-cult soc.support.pregnancy.loss alt.support.food-allergies soc.support.transgendered alt.support.glaucoma (2.4.3) The administrator's personal mailbox. bill@twwells.com This is my personal account. I'd prefer it if you sent messages relating to the anonymous message service to admin@anon.twwells.com but I will accept them on this address as well. (2.4.4) The mailbox for mail about the anonymous server. admin@anon.twwells.com This is for e-mail to me about the anonymous message service. It's where I'd prefer you to send e-mail if you want to discuss something about the server. This address isn't an anonymous ID; I'll see your real address when you mail to it. (2.4.5) The anonymous ID for mail about the anonymous server. anon-0@anon.twwells.com This is the anonymous ID for admin, for use if you wish to remain anonymous. (2.4.6) The address for requesting status about your anonymous ID. ping@anon.twwells.com This one does a bunch of things for you. When you send a message here, you will get a message in reply if all goes well. The message that is returned to you will tell you about the parameters set up for your anonymous ID. If you've sent messages through the server, you'll also get a log of recent messages. If you didn't have an anonymous ID before sending to this address, you'll get one then. (2.4.7) The address for getting the latest help file. help@anon.twwells.com This returns to you a copy of the latest version of this help message. Messages sent to this address are not generally read. If you want help from a person, me, send your message to admin@anon.twwells.com. (2.4.8) The address for deleting your anonymous ID. delete@anon.twwells.com This causes the anonymous ID assigned to the address you sent e-mail from to be deleted from the server's database. Once you've received the server's reply, the old anonymous ID will no longer work. You can get a new ID, just as you would have got one had you not had one before. (2.5) Server commands. Each anonymous ID has a number of parameters controlling it. These parameters are set up for you when you get your ID. You can change them by sending commands to the server. Once you make a change, the new setting sticks until you change it again. All of these commands start with the letters ANON-. You must start them in the left-most column, with no indents. You must also get the case right. The server will see ANON- as a command prefix; it will not see anon- as one. You stick these commands in a regular mail message which you then send to the server. You can send them to the ping address, an anonymous ID, or a posting address. Sending them to the help address will _not_ work. (2.5.1) Setting your nickname. You may wish to have a "nickname" displayed in your mail messages and posts. This doesn't change how people send you mail; it just changes the text in the From: line of mail sent by the server for you. Most people prefer that the people they're talking to have a nickname rather than just an anonymous ID so it's a good idea to set a nickname. You set your nickname with this command: ANON-Name: your_nickname That'll be shown as your nickname from then on. You can change the nickname at any time by resending this command to the server. You can remove your nickname entirely with this command: ANON-Name: (2.5.2) Turning mail forwarding on and off. This server permits you to control whether or not you'll receive e-mail through it. These are the commands: ANON-Mail: yes ANON-Mail: no When you turn mail forwarding off and someone sends you e-mail, you'll get a notification message informing you that you there was e-mail received here but not forwarded. (You can turn that off, too.) You can also determine the anonymous ID of the person who sent you mail by sending a message to the ping address. You can also send server commands, like the one to turn mail forwarding on, to that address. (2.5.3) Announcing your mail forwarding status. You can save people trouble by letting them know ahead of time whether you do or do not accept anonymous e-mail. The way this works is that the *server* adds a special line, one of: X-Email-Accepted: yes X-Email-Accepted: no to the headers of mail or posts from you. People reading the message header can see from that whether you're set up to receive e-mail. The server doesn't do this when you first get your ID; you can turn it on or off with the commands: ANON-Announce: yes ANON-Announce: no (2.5.4) Being notified of unforwarded e-mail. If your mail forwarding is off when you receive mail, the server will ordinarily send you a message that notifies you of that fact. That message does not indicate what ID sent you the mail; you send a message to the ping address if you want that. You can control whether you get these notify messages. The commands are: ANON-Notify: no ANON-Notify: yes (2.5.5) Getting a return receipt for messages sent to the server. You may wish the server to return to you a receipt, a "ping" message, for each message that you send to the server. The commands to turn this on and off are: ANON-Ping: yes ANON-Ping: no (2.5.6) Controlling signature removal. When you get a new anonymous ID, it is set up to remove what the server believes is a signature -- whatever is on a line that starts with two hyphens and the lines that follow it. If you don't have a signature file, this is pointless. And, since signature removal can remove parts of a message that you didn't want remmoved, you may want to turn it off. These are the commands that control this. The first arranges that your signature is not removed; the second turns signature removal back on. ANON-Sigkeep: yes ANON-Sigkeep: no (3) FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS. Suggestions welcome for additions to this list. (3.1) I send mail to the server and nothing ever comes back. Help! Nothing, nada, not one single message back? Then, presumably, you got this help message somewhere else. :-) There are three reasons you might not ever get anything back. o You are sending from an e-mail address the server doesn't like. Mail from certain usernames routinely contains information about the users of the service. To prevent accidental disclosure of that information, the server discards e-mail from any of these usernames (and may from others, as I add them to the list): listserv mailer majordom majordomo mmdf news nobody postmast postmaster root smtp uucp In addition, there are some categories of mail addresses with the same problem. The server will discard e-mail from usernames that *contain* any of these: daemon usenet newsadm autoresponder o You are sending from the wrong e-mail address. The server returns its replies to your From: address. If you have an incorrect address there, you can't get anything from the server. In particular, if you configure your mail software to include your anonymous ID in the From: line, you will have trouble with the server. Just leave your mail headers alone when using this server. o Your messages never get to the server in the first place. The only way to find that out is to ask me. Send e-mail to the administrator's mailbox or, in a pinch, to my personal account. Include a copy of the mail that doesn't make it to the server. If you can't even get mail to my personal account, see if you can find someone who can and ask them to forward mail for you. (3.2) I send posts to the server but I don't see them on mine. Why? For details, see the section that describes how the Usenet works. The short answer is that it takes time, sometimes days. Yes, it is possible, and happens quite frequently, that you start getting e-mail replies to your posts long before you see them on your news server. (3.3) I already have an anonymous ID, how come I got another? The server knows you by your From: line. That line has two parts to it, your e-mail address and your name. You can change the name part (typically in parenthesis but often just before your address in brackets) and the server will still know who you are. However, if the mailbox name changes, the server may assign you a new ID. Your mail address has two parts, a local part and a domain name. In `bill@twwells.com', the local part is `bill' and the domain name is `twwells.com'. If the local part changes in any way, you get a new anonymous ID. The capitalization of the domain name can change without your getting a new ID; however, if it changes in any other way, you get a new ID. There are a number of reasons that your address might change. The most common is that your system doesn't care about the case of names and you have multiple mail clients. So you set one up with one capitalization and another with a different one. You set up the anonymous ID using one mail client. Then you use another mail client and bingo! you have a new anonymous ID. The other common cause is that your system administrators make a change that affects the domain part of your address. For example, you might have been someone@cs.some.edu and your administrators changed things so that it's now someone@some.edu. Or the other way around. What do you need to do about this? As far as I'm concerned, nothing. The server really doesn't care how many anonymous IDs you have; they're all different to it anyway. Other people might be confused by the multiple IDs so you might want to arrange that just one of them gets used, by making sure that all your mailers put out the address. In the event that your system administrators change your domain name, just drop me a note at the admin mailbox and I'll adjust the database. (3.4) I'm changing my address and want to keep my ID. Can I? Yes. Send mail to the admin mailbox from the old and the new addresses saying that you want the change. I'll adjust the database accordingly. If you've lost access to the old address, send me e-mail from the new address. If I can determine that you are who you say you are, I'll make the adjustment. Otherwise, you'll just have to have a new ID. (3.5) Can I have one anonymous ID for more than one address? No. This would be a major programming headache. (3.6) When I use your server does it affect my regular mail? In a word, "no". The only way the anonymous server gets involved is when someone sends e-mail to it. If you post or e-mail using your regular program, it'll work just like before. One word of warning: a lot of people like to modify their mailer configuration to put their anonymous ID in their outgoing mail's and post's headers. This is a _bad_ idea. First off, you aren't truly anonymous when you do this. Second, when you send e-mail to the anonymous server, it doesn't know who you are -- it sees the anonymous ID in the From: line and refuses to process the mail. Anyway, if you do this, it _will_ affect your regular mail and in ways you probably won't like. (3.7) I sent commands to the server. Why weren't they processed? One common reason is that you've got multiple IDs and you sent commands for one ID but expected them to be processed for another. However, the most common reason is that you haven't given them to the server in a way that it will accept them. The server is picky about commands; it wants them as you see them in the examples in this file. Be sure that you get the capitalization correct, and make sure you don't have any spaces before them. There's one other possibility: server commands look a lot like mail headers. Some mailers will try to be helpful and, if you stick server commands at the top of your message, move them into your mail headers where the server won't find them. The simple solution is to put something that doesn't look like a mail header before the commands. Mail headers start with a word that is immediately followed by a colon; if your line doesn't look like that, you shouldn't have this problem. OH yeah, one other thing: don't send them to the help address; that doesn't work either. Only the ping, anonymous e-mail, and anonymous posting addresses will work for commands. (3.8) I have a question about your newsgroup.... I'm not the person to ask; I run this anonymous server but otherwise have no connection to most of the groups it serves. You probably will have to ask your question of someone who uses the newsgroup in question. (3.9) It used to work for me but isn't now. Any ideas? All of the usual mail problems might be at fault. However, there is one thing that is particular to my server. As I've said, this server is for a limited group of people. Sometimes people will attempt to send spam through it, or binaries, or otherwise use it for purposes it wasn't intended. When that happens, the server or I (depending on what catches the message) will simply set the "discard" flag for the offending address. No, the user doesn't get a notification. I hate to be a grump about this but when administrators tell their users that they're misbehaving, those users often come up with an amazing variety of ways to waste the administrators' time trying to convince him that what he's doing is OK. Well, I run this service and, bluntly, I set the rules and if I say "no", then "no" it is. If you think you've been blocked but you also think you have a legitimate use for this server well, I'll be blunt about it: You write and explain to me, politely, why you think you might have been blocked, why I should believe you won't do it again, and why you think you have a legitimate use for this server. I'm being deliberately rude; I hope I've sounded rude enough. The point is that I don't do this frivolously -- but those who misuse my service deserve far more than the rudeness I'm presenting here. The people who have real need of this service do not need my phone lines tied up for hours downloading GIFs of someone's girlfriend's toes! No, I'm not joking! (3.10) Someone is misusing your server. Please put a stop to it. I get _very_ few complaints about this, primarily because of my draconian handling of misuses. When I do get a complaint, it's generally "So and so is posting something I don't approve of". Let me say something right off the bat: "Everyone has a right to be a total asshole". I'm not going to block anyone for being a jerk, using foul language, failing to spoiler their posts, or anything like that. You have, or can get, killfiles. Use them. I _will_ block someone from using the server if they repeatedly post material that is off-topic in a newsgroup. In order to do that, I need to have copies of off-topic posts sent to the administrator's mailbox. I don't have the spare time to research this sort of thing; if you want action taken on this, it is up to you to ensure that I see the evidence. (3.11) I'm being harassed via your server, what can I do? There are two ways that a user may commit harassment. The first is sending a large number of e-mail messages whose apparent intent is to annoy their recipients. If you receive e-mail that you believe is an example of this sort of harassment, send it to the administrator's mailbox so I can collect the evidence. The second sort of harassment is continuing to send e-mail after a clear request to stop. In order to get me to act on a claim of this sort of harassment, you must follow these steps: o You must send them a clear request to stop sending you mail. o You must then not send them any other sort of mail, other than repeated requests to stop sending you mail. o You must send me a copy of your request for them to stop sending you mail. o You must send me mail that is timestamped sufficiently later than your request that there is no question that they should have received your request and nonetheless sent you e-mail. Note that harassment isn't based on the _content_ of the e-mail. If someone sends you sweet love notes after you've told them to stop, it's harassment. Conversely, if you haven't told them to stop, it's not harassment until you do. It is your responsibility to tell them to stop. I _will not_ do it on your behalf. (3.12) I'm being mailbombed (or spammed) through your server. Help! Well, for one thing, this isn't terribly likely. The server catches 99.99% of all spams and _all_ spams that involve large quantities of mail. Still, programs are fallible. If you think the server has passed along a spam or mailbomb, send me an example and I'll deal with it. More likely is that someone has sent mail (or posted) and modified their mail headers to look like it came from here. If that happens, I want to see a copy of it so I can hunt them down and, ah, well, I'll skip the graphic details. :-) (3.13) I'd like to send to a mailing list using your server. Can I? In general, no. Mailing lists don't mix well with anonymous servers. If you really, really want to, write to the mailing list administrator and have him get in touch with me. We'll see what can be worked out. (3.14) Why did I get this thing about not forwarding blank messages? Perhaps you did send a blank message to someone. The server won't let you do that. It wants _something_ in the body of the message. However, there is one way you can get this message back even when you didn't send a blank message. That's when the very first line of the message starts with two hypens. If you have signature removal turned on, the entire message is deleted and you then have a blank message. The way this happens, most of the time, is that you're using PGP or MIME. They like to stick in lines like that. If that's your problem, you'll need to turn that feature off (see section 2.5.6) and see to it that your mailer doesn't stick a signature on when you don't want it to. (3.15) Why did the server cut my post off short? Check out 3.14 for a discussion of the problem. It's the same problem and the same solution. (3.16) Would you add this non support/recovery related newsgroup? In short, no. This server can operate _only_ because it's a limited service. If I tried to be like penet, it wouldn't be able to run at all. If I tried to be like penet, I'd eventually have to shut down, too. And, especially, no to the *.test groups -- use the ping feature. (3.17) Why didn't you answer my e-mail? I sent e-mail to you asking you to explain how to use the server and you didn't answer! I went to great pains to write this help file. Odds are you didn't read it. Heck, that means that you aren't reading this. :-) Oh well, I'll pretend that you are anyway. You'd be surprised at the amount of e-mail I get that's says that the author didn't even check this help file out -- or that he did and wasn't willing to make the effort to understand it. Sorry folks, but I only have so many hours in a day and I must be ruthless in how I give them away. Run this server, yeah, that's a good thing. Spend endless hours trying to explain things to people who won't make the effort for themselves. Uh, uh. With that said, sometimes I don't answer for awhile because I'm busy, or because the answer requires some work on my part, or because I just didn't get the mail. I'm a living human being and that means that I do other things than run this server! Patience is your friend; I try to empty my in-box at least once a week but even that I can't promise. (3.18) I posted and it didn't come out anonymous! Help! Not to be rude. Again. But you did read the top of this help message? I've had people come and blame me because "your server didn't make me anonymous like you said it would". That gets old really quickly. Anyway, if it didn't come out anonymous, that's almost certainly because you used the posting function of your newsreader rather than the e-mail function. Please read the instructions on anonymous posting above; that will explain the details. (3.19) I'd like to post into an ongoing thread, how? Your newsreader probably has a "followup" feature that lets you post so that your message will be a followup to another message on the newsgroup. There's no magic to this: newsreaders group all messages with the same title together into a thread so if you send a message through the server with the same title, it'll be part of the thread. (The Re: in front of the title doesn't count.) Some newsreaders pay attention to the "references" header of a post. This lets them do a better job of organizing a thread, by keeping track of which messages are replies to which. This server doesn't support that feature, though it may someday. (3.20) Can I send anonymous mail to someone who doesn't have an ID? No. This service is intended for users of specific newsgroups. It is not intended for general communication. If you want to communicate anonymously with someone on a newsgroup and they don't have an anonymous ID, you can ask them to get one via one of the newsgroups you and they participate in. (4) E-MAIL, THE USENET, AND ANONYMOUS SERVERS. This section provides an overview of how it all works. It's not too technical but you don't really need to know this unless something isn't working the way you expect. (4.1) E-mail. On the Internet, e-mail is almost, but not quite, a private communication between the sender and receiver. That is, a lot of the time, if you're on a machine that's connected to the Internet and you send e-mail to another machine that's connected to the Internet, your machine talks directly to their machine and no other mail machines are involved in the transaction. It doesn't always work that way. Your machine might not be able to get to the other machine. In that case, your machine will put the mail aside for awhile and try again later. If you're dialing into the Internet things are a bit different. For example, if the receiver isn't available to take the mail right away, your machine probably won't be around later to resend it. To deal with that problem and others, you use a "mail relay"; your mail doesn't go directly to the receiver, it goes to some host on the Internet which sends it on your behalf. Some mailers are smart: they'll try sending the mail directly if they can but use a mail relay if they can't. Similarly, mail for you won't get to you unless you happen to be on-line. Again, a mail relay is involved, this time on your end. It accepts mail for you which you then collect using your mail program. (Many other networks, notably the UUCP network, use store-and- forward mailing: your mail goes from machine to machine and is stored on each intermediate machine while it's waiting to be sent on.) On the Internet, the places where you're most likely to have your privacy invaded are at the end-points of the communication. That is, the people running your system or network or those running the other end. That's because they directly control those systems and because they're more likely to have a reason to want to. The intervening networks aren't too likely to be a problem; not only do the people running them generally have no interest in what passes through, they have a legal obligation to prevent snooping. And, in general, the huge volume of Internet traffic virtually guarantees that any given piece of mail doesn't pass in front of anyone's eyes (or automated scanner...). E-mail can be lost on the Internet. A malfunction at your site, the receiver's site or any mail relays involved can result in the loss of your mail. These don't happen often but they do happen.... Store-and-forward networks generally lose mail more often, simply because there's more places for things to go wrong. (4.2) The Usenet. Usenet works completely differently from e-mail. With e-mail, you write the mail and send it off to specific recipients. With the Usenet, you write the post and it goes to whoever happens to be looking in the right place to find it. The Usenet is on a collection of "news servers" -- machines that participate in transmitting and storing Usenet news. When you're reading or posting to the net, you talk to your local news server, which has its own private copy of Usenet messages. When you post, your message gets placed on your news server. Your news server is connected to a number of neighbors, to which it sends all new news it receives. How often it sends the news depends a lot on local setup; it can range from seconds to days. Each of your news neighbors sends what *it* gets to their neighbors and so on, until your posted message gets to all the news servers that carry the group you posted on. Most of the Usenet is within a day of the rest of it but outlying parts are as much as a week or two away. Usenet transmission is much less reliable than e-mail. That's largely because of the volume of news -- at the time of writing (September 1996), it's about 2.5 gigabytes every single day. Any glitch in the flow and messages, lots of them, can get lost. On top of that, news servers are all different in what groups they carry, so posts go through different ways depending on the groups they're in. This can cause messages to be more or less reliably transmitted and can also affect the time it takes for messages to spread through the Usenet. (4.3) Anonymous e-mail. When you send e-mail to someone, they can generally look at the "mail headers" -- the text that goes at the top of each mail message -- to determine who you are. Since most or all of this information can be changed by the sender, one way to achieve anonymity in sending mail is by altering it. This has several drawbacks. First off, in many cases, you cannot change it all. There's often *something* left over that can be used to track you down. From the sender's point of view the worst drawback is simply that it's out of his control what is and isn't changeable. What works to conceal one's identity today might stop working tomorrow. Second, even when you do successfully remove every identifying mark, your provider isn't generally obligated to help you conceal your identity. So if the receiver wants to know who sent them mail, there's a good chance they can find out just by asking. Third, you can't get a reply back if you don't put a reply address -- which sorta defeats the purpose. :-) Finally, many Internet providers do not allow one to send e-mail with altered headers -- they may have no way to prevent it but if they catch you at it, they'll drop your account. The solution to these problems is an "anonymous e-mail server". These servers work like this: o You send ordinary e-mail to the server. o The server removes your mail header from the message. o The server creates a new mail header for your message. o The server forwards the modified mail to where it's supposed to go. There are a number of ways that this can work; I'll describe how it works for my server. Each address that can receive anonymous e-mail through my server is given an "anonymous Id". This is nothing more than a special e-mail address on my machine. Mail that is directed to that address is forwarded to the address that goes with it. If the sender doesn't have an anonymous ID of his own, he's given one. That anonymous ID goes into his new mail headers so the person who sent him mail can reply to him. (4.4) Anonymous Usenet posting. Like anonymous e-mail, it is possible to "do it yourself". It is subject to much the same drawbacks as do-it-yourself anonymous e-mail. Again, the solution is an anonymous server. In this case, the server doesn't send your e-mail to someone else, it posts it into a Usenet newsgroup on my local news server.