Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!uunet!labrea!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!chinet!ignatz
From: ignatz@chinet.UUCP (Dave Ihnat)
Newsgroups: unix-pc.general
Subject: Re: looking for automatic e-mail acknowledgement program
Summary: Watch that infinite loop...
Keywords: vacation mailers feedback loop
Message-ID: <6615@chinet.UUCP>
Date: 17 Sep 88 16:22:55 GMT
References: <428@manta.pha.pa.us>
Reply-To: ignatz@homebru.CHI.IL.US (Dave Ihnat)
Distribution: unix-pc
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 19

In article <428@manta.pha.pa.us> brant@manta.pha.pa.us (Brant Cheikes) writes:
>Does anyone have an automatic mail acknowledgement program that works
>on a UNIXpc?  I know these things exist; I've received messages from
>them. (...) I can imagine doing this with a shell script or C
>program, but I thought I'd interrogate the net before hacking such a
>thing together myself.

Just a little note here...several years ago, a couple of these made the net
rounds.  Unfortunately, somebody goosed a message off to his colleague
who was on vacation, and before the auto-reply returned activated his own
vacation mailer.  Which proceeded to bounce an auto-reply to the other
vacation mailer, which...well, you get the idea.  There have been several
posted since then, but make sure that whatever one you may find (mail me if
none appear in a few days, and I'll search the archives) keeps a list of
auto-recipients and refuses to answer more than once...

	Dave Ihnat
	Analysts International Corp.
	ignatz@homebru.chi.il.us