Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!ames!oliveb!olivey!jerry
From: jerry@olivey.olivetti.com (Jerry Aguirre)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: brentp@microsoft
Summary: Tabs in messages IDs are a no-no
Message-ID: <30532@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Date: 11 Oct 88 23:06:36 GMT
References: <16262@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <387@asi.UUCP>
Sender: news@oliveb.olivetti.com
Reply-To: jerry@olivey.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre)
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 26

From article <16262@ames.arc.nasa.gov>, by len@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Len Rose):
> Did anyone else notice over 900 misc.test messages from microsoft?
> All with the same message ID,author and header..

I use the dbm history and still received hundreds of them.  The news
software seems to be able to receive the articles OK, process them and
transmit them on.  It doesn't seem to be able to check the history file
for message IDs with a tab in them.

I run ihave/sendme and I notice that the site that I got the article
from (ames) is repeatedly transmitting "sendme"s for those articles.  I
suspect we have been sending them back and forth to each other.  In each
case rnews doesn't "know" that it already has the article and so
requests another copy.  Presumably NNTP sites could be effected by the
same bug.

Obviously the software needs to handle this better.  Given that 
whitespace, including specifically tabs, is forbidden in the message ID
(RFC1036) I would suggest that the software reject any article with such
an ID.  (Put an error message in the log but do not process, store or
forward such articles.)

Interestingly this can be considered a Usenet "virus".  It spreads and
reproduces itself.  Hopefully it will eventually be to old and be
rejected by that code.
				Jerry Aguirre