"R. Alan Monroe" <amonroe@...578...> writes:
Hi. This is the qmail-send program at mail.rdslink.ro. I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.
In the couple dozen mailing lists I've ever subscribed to, I don't remember any of them distributing error messages like this. Is this done by design on inkscape-user?
What happens is this.
1. An Microsoft Outlook user "Alice" adds inkscape-user@...84... to their address book.
2. Alice is stupid and Windows is stupid, so her machine becomes infected with a virus.
3. The virus picks two addresses at random from Alice's address book, bob@...1168... and inkscape-user@...1055...
4. The virus sends an email to bob@...1168..., claiming to be from inkscape-user@...1055...
5. Bob's email is not a valid address (e.g. because Bob works for a different company now).
6. bobs-server is stupid, so it sends an delivery failure notification email to inkscape-user@...84... instead of Alice.
Because
- a lot of people use Inkscape; and - Inkscape is an end-user program (i.e. not a "techie" program); and - Inkscape is available for Windows
there are bound to be a lot more people doing 1 through 6 than most other mailing lists (at least, most lists I know of). The end result is lots of bounce messages in this list.
If you are a stupid Windows user, there are steps you can take. In order of both increasing difficulty and increasing effectiveness, they are:
- don't use outlook (I suggest thunderbird or sylpheed instead);
- install two competent virus scanners, preferably one Open Source and one commercial. Preferably start with a clean system and install the scanners *before* copying old data back onto the system.
I can't make any useful suggestions because frankly I haven't used Windows since it got networking.
- don't use Windows (I suggest Ubuntu GNU/Linux).
A quick google will turn up plenty of information about thunderbird, sylpheed and ubuntu.