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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.rumor,net.news.adm
Subject: Re: reading other peoples' mail
Message-ID: <6614@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-Apr-86 20:33:24 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.6614
Posted: Tue Apr 22 20:33:24 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Apr-86 20:33:24 EST
References: <703@frog.UUCP> <12400018@uiucdcs> <2410@jhunix.UUCP>, <2600@utcsri.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 42

> [Important message was returned as undeliverable due to addressing error.]
> Although he may very well have read only the header and not the body of
> the message, and although he presumably wouldn't have read any of it if
> it hadn't been trying a nonexistent routing, still this is an example of
> a benefit received from administrative snooping.  (Thanks, Henry!)

(You're welcome, Jim.)  Policy here is that mail is private, and is not
read by non-addressees without good cause, system administrators or not.
Apart from uncommon occurrences, like well-founded suspicion of serious
wrongdoing justifying official investigation, exercising sysadmin powers
to read private mail is appropriate only when the alternative is loss of
the mail.  In the absence of a standard flag specifying whether privacy
or delivery is more important, we assume that opening a letter is better
than throwing it in the garbage.

Since utzoo runs old and dumb mail software, the software isn't up to
doing automatic bouncing of undeliverable mail:  such mail gets dumped
in the sysadmin's lap.  [Why the old and dumb software?  Partly because
doing the right thing automatically appears to be an unsolved AI problem,
what with stupid gateways and brain-damaged "smart" mailers making horrid
messes of what used to be a simple, standard postmark scheme.  A good
fraction of the dead-letter volume is messages that "smart" mailers have
bounced in stupid and incorrect ways!]  I read as much of the letter as
necessary to infer addressee and/or originator; which one I need depends
on the nature of the problem.  Usually I only need to read the header, but
sometimes the whole text of the message isn't enough.  If a judgement call
is needed on whether to forward or bounce, I will often take a look at the
body to determine whether it appears to be important and time-critical.
In any case, the contents are officially forgotten as soon as the letter
leaves my hands.

> People can write some very nice messages for mail-answering programs to
> use automatically.  This may have happened in my case.  But as I looked
> at it from various angles*, it *seemed* human.

Half and half, in this case, actually.  Certain situations happen often
enough that I have stock replies on hand to save time.  Although I don't
remember the particular message, you probably got one of them.
-- 
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League For The Derision		Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
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