Administrivia: Questions about the List

Cypherdenizens,

Sorry to bother the List, but two things have come up that I need some
feedback on. Two items:

1. Is the list sending out messages in a defective (slow) way, or is
my service (Netcom) bouncing a lot of mail, thus causing these delays
as toad attempts resends?

2. I'm getting a lot of error messages from Julf's site, saying my
messages cannot be delivered to "an2757938" and the like. This used to
be a problem, but was fixed by Eric Hughes a year or so ago. It
appears to be back again. Are others seeing this, too?


First, I seem to be having delays in Cypherpunks mail of about
1-2 days on about 5-10% of all messages. This shows up as me not
seeing messages others are already responding to (because 90-95% of
all messages are getting to me in the usual prompt way). I especially
notice this, of course, with my own messages. (I can't test whether
other mail is being delayed, because I'm no longer on Extropians and
so Cypherpunks accounts for 95% of all my mail.)

For example, the item on video surveillance cameras, forwarded from
alt.conspiracy, did not not reach me until a day after others had
already posted public responses. And just today I got a 5-day old
message (Steve Bellovin's "Re: Clipper Cracks Appear"). The message I
posted today about "Shout it to the world: Clipper is Compromised!"
has still not appeared at my site, although some others have already
responded to me about it (ironically, Steve Bellovin did).

My question is this: Is this just _me_ (and possibly Netcom), or are
others seeing these delays? My suspicion has been that Netcom is
bouncing mail, because of recent overloading and NFS problems, reports
from other about their mail being delayed (usually this implies a
bounce and resend), and from the lack of other messages here
complaining about delayed messages.

Could Hugh Daniel, if he is reading this, or Eric Hughes, or anyone
else who has access to the list at toad.com give me some hint as to
whether I should beat on Netcom some more? 

Could other Netcommers here, of which there may be as many as 50, tell
me what experiences they've had?

The second item is also an administrivia issue: I'm getting dozens of
error messages from daemon@penet.finland.etc. or somesuch (I can't
look right now at the precise address) telling me my mail cannot be
delivered, will not be delivered, is being returned, etc. It looks
like the old blocks Eric had installed to prevent Julf's system from
doing this are no longer working. (There may be more accurate
explanations....)

Anyone else seeing this? Anything we can do? Does the new automated
subscription software (majordomo?) have anything to do with this?

If people send me comments, I'll summarize--unless someone really
knows the Big Picture and wants to just summarize it all here.

Thanks, 

--Tim May

-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

>1. Is the list sending out messages in a defective (slow) way, or is
>my service (Netcom) bouncing a lot of mail, thus causing these delays
>as toad attempts resends?

The problem, from what I can tell, is that one of the mail routing
machines at uunet in Virginia was down.  For various political reasons
having to do with AUP's, toad.com routes NSFNet mail through uunet.
So one of the relay machines went down, and some messages were delayed.

Mail queuing makes no effort at all to preserve ordering, so if some
message doesn't go straight to the machine it's supposed to the first
time, ordering can get pretty randomly scrambled.

>2. I'm getting a lot of error messages from Julf's site, saying my
>messages cannot be delivered to "an2757938" and the like. This used to
>be a problem, but was fixed by Eric Hughes a year or so ago. It
>appears to be back again. Are others seeing this, too?

I took five penet addresses off the list.  Those people who were on it
from that site can add themselves back on with majordomo.

Eric

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Timothy C. May spake:
> 
> 
> Cypherdenizens,
> 

	Looks like netcom is getting overloaded.
	Looks like a few alternatives are needed.

	(Hoho. Sameer looks to the future. ;-)

- -Sameer

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Also, mail from this list has the following header:

Precedence: bulk


That might slow things down on A LOT of systems.  I know on my lists that 
I run, things tend to get bottlenecked untile mid-evening when 
"legitimate" stuff has been processed.

____        Robert A. Hayden          <=> hayden@krypton.mankato.msus.edu
\  /__          -=-=-=-=-             <=>          -=-=-=-=-
 \/  /   Finger for Geek Code Info    <=> Political Correctness is
   \/  Finger for PGP 2.3a Public Key <=> P.C. for "Thought Police"
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
(GEEK CODE 1.0.1)  GAT d- -p+(---) c++(++++) l++ u++ e+/* m++(*)@ s-/++
		       n-(---) h+(*) f+ g+ w++ t++ r++ y+(*)

T.C. May wrote:

> Cypherdenizens,
> 
> Sorry to bother the List, but two things have come up that I need
> some feedback on. Two items:
> 
> 1. Is the list sending out messages in a defective (slow) way, or
> is my service (Netcom) bouncing a lot of mail, thus causing
> these delays as toad attempts resends?
...
> First, I seem to be having delays in Cypherpunks mail of about
> 1-2 days on about 5-10% of all messages. This shows up as me
> not seeing messages others are already responding to (because
> 90-95% of all messages are getting to me in the usual prompt
> way). I especially notice this, of course, with my own messages.
> (I can't test whether other mail is being delayed, because I'm
> no longer on Extropians and so Cypherpunks accounts for 95%
> of all my mail.)

It's not just you.  I'm having the exact same problem.  Most messages
get thru rather quickly, but some have gotten delayed, sometimes by
several days...  The problem is appearantly at toad.com.

> The second item is also an administrivia issue: I'm getting
> dozens of error messages from daemon@penet.finland.etc. or
> somesuch (I can't look right now at the precise address) telling
> me my mail cannot be delivered, will not be delivered, is being
> returned, etc. It looks like the old blocks Eric had installed to
> prevent Julf's system from doing this are no longer working.
> (There may be more accurate explanations....)
> 
> Anyone else seeing this? Anything we can do? Does the new
> automated subscription software (majordomo?) have anything
> to do with this?

Same thing.  I've gotten over 50 reject messages from penet so far. :(

I think Julf did a sweep to eliminate "inactive" accounts, and
unfortunantly set the parameters a bit too broad.  My penet account got
killed too.

The offending addresses seem to be:

na56715
na55954
na49546
na69591