FW: [Mailman-Users] List email pre-approval

[Steve Sterling]

Thanks to all who have responded. To the questions posed back:
a) The pre-approved messages are all text, and the mime-type is set to plain
text in the header (I checked on one to be sure!). They are generated from a
mailer routine on a website, so are consistent (don't vary from user to
user).
b) I don't see a parameter I can use in the mailer ASP that will add a line
to the header. Will check, as I can appreciate that would be a better way to
do it.
b) The Approved: <password> is the first line in the body, which under
Majordomo would be stripped. There is no whitespace before the "A" in
approved. The true body of the message then follows on the 2nd line in the
message body (no blank line between).
c) the password is the Administrator's password for this list.
d)Maybe the format of the approval command I am using is incorrect. It is
"Approved: password" . This worked under MajorDomo. Should I use Approve or
approve or no colon or no whitespace after the colon or ??

Thanks again to all who have offered help. We will solve this. Main thing, I
have confirmation from you all that Mailman should perform this function if
I get the format/syntax correct.

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: JC Dill [mailto:lists at vo.cnchost.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2003 10:00 AM
To: Steve Sterling
Cc: Jon Carnes; Mailman users Mailing list
Subject: Re: [Mailman-Users] List email pre-approval


> On Sat, 2003-02-22 at 21:40, Steve Sterling wrote:
>
>> With Majordomo, you could pre-approve a message to the list, say
>> from an otherwise unsubscribed user or to a moderated list.
>>
>> I tried with my mailman, but it treats the Approved: <password>
>> first line as normal message body. Somewhere, I remember seeing
>> that Mailman supports such things, but can't find any documentation
>> on syntax, etc.

Jon Carnes wrote:
> Could this be the problem: When searching for an Approve/Approved
> header, the first non-whitespace line of the body of the message is
> also checked, if the body has a MIME type of text/plain.
>
> Can your mailclient add the Approve line as a header?

I suspect the problem is due to sending the message with formatted text
(not MIME type text/plain) and *also* using the Approved line as the
first line in the body of the message.  If you need for non-subscribers
to be able to send formatted posts from a client that won't allow adding
an Approved header, you can just specify approved posters.  The option
is found under Privacy Options, Sender Filters, at:

	~mailman/admin/listname/privacy/sender

Then any message from one of the approved email addresses will be sent
on without requiring further approval.

***Warning***

If an email virus which uses email addresses found on a victim's
computer manages to grab one of these approved addresses and use it as
the "From" and also coincidentally grabs your mailing list submission
address and uses it as the "To", your list will accept the virus laden
email and distribute the virus to your whole list.  This coincidence is
not unlikely, since both addresses will be found together in the inbox
or address book of your subscribers.  One infected subscriber can then
infect your whole list.

(I have a friend who has a large newsletter list and who has been
repeatedly falsely accused of spreading viruses when a virus forged her
list address as the "From" and then sent the virus *directly* to a list
subscriber (her subscribers also often know each other directly, thus
one subscriber who has the list address in her address book will also
have another subscriber's address in her address book too).  She is
sticking with the Approved header to ensure that it will be more
difficult for a virus to manage to forge her approved address and send
to her list submission address.)

If this list is a distribution list (not a discussion list), you may
want to hide the sender address, so that the automatically approved
submission addresses are not disclosed to the list recepients.  This is
the last item under General List Personality at:

	~/mailman/admin/listname/general

jc