Xref: utzoo news.groups:16150 alt.flame:13763
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!snorkelwacker!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: news.groups,alt.flame
Subject: twits on the net (was: Re: Cancellation and Suspicion
Keywords: flame
Message-ID: <37628@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 5 Jan 90 18:12:09 GMT
References: <.:ZI=Fxds10@ficc.uu.net> <1990Jan5.073857.24939@twwells.com>
Followup-To: /dev/null
Organization: Fictional Reality: We bring good things to life
Lines: 73

In article <1990Jan5.073857.24939@twwells.com>, bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) writes:

> After the garbage that Sexton has perpetrated, I wouldn't put
> anything past him. His latest e-mail to me shows that he is just
> plain sick.

Hmm. He must have been in a good mood. I got some rather stupid mail from
Sexton, too, breaking a (not long enough) period of quiet from him. I'd
thought he'd found new people to bother, but I was wrong...

It *did* however make me finally put together something I've wanted for a
while -- at the end of this message you'll find Fido, the obedient Twit
Detector, phase 1. It's a shell script that will let you return a message to
someone in such a way that they can't pretend to misinterpret your feelings
about them. Fido, Phase 2 will hook into a .forward file, keep an eye on
incoming addresses and do it automatically -- at that point, your mailbox
becomes effectively as protected as your USENET does with a kill file. You
can, finally, make someone 'disappear' from the net and stop bothering you
or wasting your time.

People who want to use Fido may. Suggestions and improvements are always
welcome. And when I get Fido II going, I'll may make it available, also.

Unfortunately, I wish the net hadn't come down to kill files and watchdogs.
I don't see any way around it, though.

> Post anything at all in response to this message and I'll
> cheerfully post that garbage you sent to me.

My comment to Sexton: you're in my kill file, so I don't care what you say.
If it's libelous, someone else will let me know about it. Otherwise, I'm
enjoying the quiet. It's a much nicer net with you missing. The same can
probably be said for a few other choice names out there, too, but that's
between me and my kill file.

---- fido.csh ----

#! /bin/csh -f
# send the given file to the given address as a mailer daemon error

if ($#argv != 2) then
	echo "fido: address data_file"
	exit 1
endif

set addresses = $1
set datafile = $2

(echo "Reply-To: nobody"; \
 echo "Subject: Mailer daemon error: Mail from sender refused." ;\
 echo "" ; \
 echo "### Notice: this message has been intercepted by Fido, a"; \
 echo "###    Twit Detector. You have been defined as a Twit,"; \
 echo "###    and my master refuses to read your mail. If you";\
 echo "###    think this was done in error, you do not know"; \
 echo "###    my master very well. This message is being returned"; \
 echo "###    to you because my master has better things to do"; \
 echo "###    his time than read it."; \
 echo "###"; \
 echo "###    woof woof." ;\
 echo "###    His obedient servant, Fido, the twit decector."; \
 echo "###" ; echo ""; \
 echo "" ; echo "   --- Copy of rejected message follows ---"; echo ""; \
 sed -e 's/^/      /' $datafile) | /usr/lib/sendmail -F "My Twit Detector" -t $1

---- end of fido.csh ----
-- 

Chuq Von Rospach   <+>   chuq@apple.com   <+>   [This is myself speaking]

Trivia question for the week: What do the following names all have in
common? JHenderson, Milo D. Cooper, Clayton Cramer, Oleg Kiselev, Tim Maroney
Bob Mosley III, Richard Sexton, Dave Sill, Brad Templeton, Patricia O Tuama.