Braintalk Returns!

[BobbyB]

Braintalk Returns!


> Greetings. We had a bad software and hardware crash recently and about a month of downtime, but Braintalk is returning! I'm in the middle of restoring the server and installing brand new software. Thank you for your patience, and please visit http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums in the next few days.
>
> Take care,
> -John Lester
>

[Rocking4Epilepsy]

Thats not the message I see.
This is what I see when I clicked the link you provided


UPDATE IN PROGRESS It has taken me much longer than expected to at least get the front page here and chatrooms running. I ran into the need to update the operating system, which caused more problems (the OS is broken to the point where I cannot run incremental updates). I'm waiting for the latest full version of OSX Server on CDs so I can do a full wipe of the drives and reinstall everything from scratch. Disks should arrive in the mail on Sept 5th the latest. Once that's here, I'll install the newest version of vBulletin and recover as much of the data from backups as I possibly can. I'm so sorry the system has been down for as long as it has. Every step forward I've taken to try and restore things seems to knock me 2 steps back, plus I have been travelling for work a great deal the past month. But I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks for hanging in there. To get to the BrainTalk chatrooms, please visit: http://brain.hastypastry.net/forum/chat/flashchat.php UPDATE 09.15.06 In case there are some that can see this message, John Lester now has the disks to reintall the OS & recover the database from backups. Thanks for your patience, David

[clouds z]

UPDATE IN PROGRESS It has taken me much longer than expected to at least get the front page here and chatrooms running. I ran into the need to update the operating system, which caused more problems (the OS is broken to the point where I cannot run incremental updates). I'm waiting for the latest full version of OSX Server on CDs so I can do a full wipe of the drives and reinstall everything from scratch. Disks should arrive in the mail on Sept 5th the latest. Once that's here, I'll install the newest version of vBulletin and recover as much of the data from backups as I possibly can. I'm so sorry the system has been down for as long as it has. Every step forward I've taken to try and restore things seems to knock me 2 steps back, plus I have been travelling for work a great deal the past month. But I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks for hanging in there. To get to the BrainTalk chatrooms, please visit: http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/chat/flashchat.php UPDATE 09.15.06 In case there are some that can see this message, John Lester now has the disks to reintall the OS & recover the database from backups. Thanks for your patience, David



http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/

[CoolAngel26]

Braintalk Returns!


> Greetings. We had a bad software and hardware crash recently and about a month of downtime, but Braintalk is returning! I'm in the middle of restoring the server and installing brand new software. Thank you for your patience, and please visit http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums in the next few days.
>
> Take care,
> -John Lester
>

Where did you see this??If you don't mind my asking....

[BobbyB]

----- Original Message -----
From: <braintalk@gmail.com>
To: <robertb@my house
Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 9:10 PM
Subject: Braintalk Returns!


> Greetings. We had a bad software and hardware crash recently and about a month of downtime, but Braintalk is returning! I'm in the middle of restoring the server and installing brand new software. Thank you for your patience, and please visit http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums in the next few days.
>
> Take care,
> -John Lester
>

[Thelma]

vBulletin Message
9/24/06 UPDATE IN PROGRESS

This is what I get

[Thelma]

9/24/06 UPDATE IN PROGRESS Please stay tuned! Reinstalling everything from scratch at the moment.


10 seconds later I get this message

[stevem53]

"Thank You for your patience"..:rolleyes:

[Dmom3005]

I got a email from John Lester that takes you to the link

but it just says its being reliaded completely

donna

[Thelma]

You have to laugh Steve when it says about a month of downtime

[Jyes]

Gee, July 10th to September 24th is only "about a month of downtime" :)

[~scrabble]

This is what I see:


vBulletin Message

9/24/06 UPDATE IN PROGRESS Please stay tuned! Reinstalling everything from scratch at the moment.

[hmmmmmm]

I got the email from Lester, also. It says that Brain Talk should be back up in a couple of days. We'll see.

[Doody]

So if you are a BT member you probably have it in your email as well. Here is what it says.

From: "braintalk@gmail.com" <braintalk@gmail.com> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 21:10:01 -0400 (EDT)

Greetings. We had a bad software and hardware crash recently and about
a month of downtime, but Braintalk is returning! I'm in the middle of
restoring the server and installing brand new software. Thank you for
your patience, and please visit http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums in
the next few days.

Take care,
-John Lester

[Doody]

Oops, sorry, I didn't see this thread until after I posted about getting an email message. My apologies!

[stevem53]

You have to laugh Steve when it says about a month of downtime


Yeah..A month of Sundays..:D

[hoop_mom]

wow...it's so hard to be happy, huh?:mad:

thank you for the information. Im not gonna "dwell" on the accuracy of the message, rather hope that everything gets up and running as intended...and all this negative "karma" can be redirected somewhere else.:D

[ncdude]

Just a suggestion that you might want to remove your e-mail address or change the @ to the word 'at' before some mining program gets your e-mail address and you end up getting a bunch of offers to help you with your mortgage or ads to help you enlarge certain body parts. :D

joe

[ponyboy]

Here's what I get...




File not found!

The URL you have loaded has not been found on this server.

Please alert the system administrator if you believe you have reached this in error.


Additional resources

Apple

For the latest information about Apple Computer, Mac OS X Server, and other Apple server products, visit:

- Apple Computer

- Mac OS X Server


Apache Web Server

Detailed documentation on the Apache web server is available:

- In the Web Service section of the Mac OS X Users Guide

- Locally

- In the Apache.org on-line documentation



Technical Problems

If you have a question or encounter a problem with your server software you can:

- Search the AppleCare Knowledge Base

- Visit the Apple Support Site for an answer or a workaround



© Copyright 2004, 2005 Apple Computer, Inc.


Much love and

[Shirl]

Hi Pony ~

I got the same this morning. :confused:

Shirl:)

[DiMarie]

Who receivs, or how are the email notifications sent?

[ncdude]

Ditto, Ponyboy. Also, I'm one of the ones that didn't get an e-mail note. Guess we're not invited to the party. :D

joe

[Shirl]

Ditto Ponyboy, Joe, & Di. I wrote a few emails asking about updates and never heard back. :confused: I guess I am not invited either.

Shirl:confused:

[Joselita]

Hi Pony,
I get the same thing to, but if I go to http://brain.hastypastry.net without the "forums" part added on the end, this is what I get now:

Mac OS X Server
Welcome to your website!

This page is just a placeholder. To publish your site, place your HTML and image files in the
following directory:

/Library/WebServer/Documents/

Be sure to name your main page "index.html" and it will become the default page for visitors.

Additional resources

For the latest information about Apple Computer, Mac OS X Server, and other Apple serverproducts, visit:

Apple Computer
Mac OS X Server

Detailed documentation on the Apache web server is available:

In the Web Technologies Administration guide
In the Mac OS X Server onscreen help
In the Apache.org on-line documentation

If you have a question or encounter a problem with your server software you can:
Search the AppleCare Knowledge Base
Visit the Apple Support Site for an answer or a workaround
Join or search the Apple mailing lists for Mac OS X Server, web development, or QuickTime Streaming Server


© Copyright 2004, 2005 Apple Computer, Inc.



I think that this is all very weird...and I am agreeing with most everyone else here that is thinking there is lots of explaining to do. I am very comfy here now, and like not worrying about asking questions and minding every other word that I type. THings had just gotten too stressful at BT this past year or so, which makes me sad. I had been hanging around there in some forum or fashion (either lurking and reading, or posting) through three site changes and lots of years. So sad to see how things had changed, and some of the "founding members" had been either run off or out right banned. Made me feel like crying at the time.. and it still makes me shake my head and wonder.

All of that to say, that I am pretty happy here so far. I will probably go visit OBT if it ever comes back on line, as I am sure that there will be some old friends there that didn't find there way here....(yet, that is).....and because of the info that I really DO hope is still there. But, this is where I plan on making my new Forum Home.

THank you DOc John...and all of the Mods that have taken such bashings and gruff. You are doing a GREAT job and I know that I am VERY thankful for all of the work, and for this place. ((HUGS))!

Take Care,
Joselita

[mrsD]

server software notice appeared for a short time during the last down in Apr 05...just before the forums came back. I get it today too.

Last night I got the message many of you saw.

I did get an email to the email account I use there. If anyone's email has
changed, and you didn't update at OBT...then you would not get it.
Also look in your spam folder...it might be there. Sometimes "Braintalk" emails
go there for me, for some reason.

[jccgf]

I didn't get an email either. However, I'm not sure I assume that means I'm not invited. It could be that JL responded to just a couple of recent inquiries to get some word out. I do think that he could have rather easily done this from the beginning, and that is a puzzling part to me. Shooting off an email to some familiar names on the dozen most active forums would have gone a long way.

Cara

[Doody]

I was just going to say what Mrs. D ((Mrs. D.)) :D said. But in addition, I remember that in your profiles you had the option to receive or not to receive email notifications from administrators.

I always check that one to make sure I get any notices. Maybe your options weren't checked, or as Mrs. D said, you changed your email in the interim. I'm absolutely certain it wouldn't be anything personal. Because if that were the case...LOL, I sure wouldn't have gotten an update! :D

[Curious]

not every member of bt1 will got the email. if the email you used isn't a good one anymore...if you had the boxed checked in your user cp to not receive email notifications from the admin...could even be if you had the box checked to not get emails from members.

i can't even remember what email i had when i registered.

in any case..y'all are invited to the party here! :p

[mrsD]

I did not send one email or request to JL or any moderator, during the down.

I was out of town, in the boonies with no electricity (no TV/no computer)
until Sept 9th. I did not visit the library this year up there either. My son created my ID here for me remotely via cell phone,
because I did want to have it (I am being spoofed on the internet by someone using "MrsD"
elsewhere, pretending to be me)...so I wanted to reserve it here for myself. But he did not return
after that day. I dictated to him some short posts at that time on a few forums here, and he posted them for me. I did keep in touch with some friends at OBT (not admins) via cell phone, so I did have a fairly good understanding of what was going on, but not very many details. (this was the first year we had digital roaming--- a huge major improvement in communication. It had been analog before which eats battery life, and batteries are critical for us there--we've only had phone service for 3 yrs now).

I think Curious is correct...if one had checked "receive messages from admin", and has a current email address still active there, you should have received
the mass mailing. But I have had "spam" activity from Braintalk, so if you have an active strict spam filter..it may not get thru.

[Wittesea]

Well, I didn't get an email and I think I just wasn't invited to the party.

1. I know the email addy I used to register there (it's the same one I used to register here, and the same email addy I have been using to register at forums for 6+ years)

2. I know I checked the box there to allow email from admins (plus I emailed JL from that addy when the site first went down)

3. and the email addy I use for registration has no spam filter at all (which is why I use that one to register for forums, newsletters, etc...).

So, no invitation for me. :) Oh, look how sad I am :D

[mrsD]

That is "food for thought"...Wittesea.

Wing42 got one, he posted the link last night. I didn't look til this morning at
my emails...
Here is the time it came ----
Sun, 24 Sep 2006 21:09:29 -0400 (EDT)

It sure looked like a "mass mail" to me. There was nothing "personal" about it, and I assumed this morning that everyone got the same thing.:confused:

[Wittesea]

I just checked again just to be sure... I checked the addy I use for registration, as well as my yahoo addy that I posted on the forums - nothing from OBT.

I was thinking maybe the system there is sending out the mass emails in "packets" (200 people at a time or something) but if it is doing 'packets' it is doing it in a strange order (not by alphabet if Wings got one and Wittesea didn't, not by post count because mine was high, not by last visit because I was at OBT the day before it broke).... and I can't think of another way that a system would sort the packets... (If it is even set up to do it that way).

Of course, it is entirely possible that I got banned for going into the OBT chat rooms during the outage to 'advertise' this forum in an effort to help people find support :D

[snoozie]

I didn't get an email either and for my Gone With The Wind fans...Frankly my dear, I don't give a da*n. I like it here, it is friendly, warm and comforting...Sue

[Sojo]

I am confused.. is this a new Brain Talk (ie Lester's new version) or someone else's attempt to keep it going? For whatever reason, after 12 years with BrainTalk, my password was no longer accepted and I couldnt get in so I registered for this one, but am not sure where I am..lol.

[Julie]

I didn't get one either. Kind of strange the way those went out.

[Snoopy]

I am confused.. is this a new Brain Talk (ie Lester's new version) or someone else's attempt to keep it going? For whatever reason, after 12 years with BrainTalk, my password was no longer accepted and I couldnt get in so I registered for this one, but am not sure where I am..lol.

This website is not affiliated with John Lester or his braintalk....this thread explains
http://forums.braintalk2.org/showthread.php?t=402

[Doody]

LOL @/with Sojo. You're just fine. This is not the original braintalk, that is still being fixed. In the meantime, sit a spell and relax and join in.

[Beck]

That link is once again dead along with the chat.

I think it is just another carrot from JL. I will believe it when I see it.

BT1 has now been down for over 2 months. It has never been down this long. JL should have waited until he was actually back in action.

[BobbyB]

yall are sick,,,my gosh
he is working on it
he said check back in a few days
what dont you under stand about that ???????????:cool:

[shotspine]

First I want to apologize for my probable misspelling of the following:
"Cay Sera Sera Whatever will be will be. The future's not mine to see." Anybody remember that song? Thought it quite apropo at the moment.

That is going to keep running thru my head now and that's all I remember. If anyone remembers more, I'd like to know so I can quit thinking about it.

[snoozie]

Thanks shotspine now you have replaced the other stupid song I can't get out of my head for this one :D :) JK...Sue


Doris Day
Que Sera Sera
When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty, will I be rich
Here's what she said to me.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

When I was young, I fell in love
I asked my sweetheart what lies ahead
Will we have rainbows, day after day
Here's what my sweetheart said.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

Now I have children of my own
They ask their mother, what will I be
Will I be handsome, will I be rich
I tell them tenderly.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

[shotspine]

Thank You! Thank You! Where in the world did you find those words? In your memory? Gosh, going back many decades ago, my best friend and I sang that song in our Elementary School Talent Show. Ohhhh! The poor parents that had to listen. No, I can't sing, not even in the shower.

It's sure good to see you. I didn't see you on the CP forum much for quite awhile before the board went down. You were missed. I hope we can all keep in touch, which ever forum we land at. For me, it's just much too soon to make any decisions. Right now I'm thinking there is no reason not to be at both, but who knows? The future is not ours (mine) to see!! Personally, I just want to be reunited with all those I care about and get back to sharing, supporting and educating. I'd love to leave all the trolls and ugly stuff behind and build a big tall wall around us to keep the uglies out and an big open door for all those that want to give and take with kindness and caring. Hmmmm, suppose that can happen?

Wishing you all good things Sue!!:)

What was the other "stupid" song you had roaming around in your head? Or maybe I shouldn't know for fear of it roaming in mine too.

[snoozie]

Hi Shotspine, I found the words using google. I do remember that song from way way back though. I knew if I didn't find the words I would sing the first part in my head over and over and over...well you get it. By the way the other song was a Barney song and my youngest is 13, I heard it in the background while talking to a friend who has a 3 year old and it was still in the memory some 10 years later. So why can't I remember anything that just happened??? I would gladly give up brain space taken up by Barney for some more relevant info :p

I was on vacation when the OBT went down. I was camping by Panguitch Lake in Utah with no phone, no TV just fresh air and fishing.:D I really like our new home here so I will be staying and hopefully many of our friends will too. At least here the mods have names and we know where they live hee hee hee just kidding mods;) :D Good to "see" you again...Sue

[JD]

AHHHH My mother sang that to me when I was little; nice memory on that! :D I hope yall don't leave here, kinda like having ya around ;) TC. JD

[shotspine]

Ahhhhhh, camping and fishing.......my most favorite things to do were travelling, camping, hiking......and eating fish someone else caught.:D My one and only child is about to be 40 with my youngest grandchild about to be 11. Since I lived 2500 miles away during my grandkids growing up days I have little memory of the "in" songs/trends of those years. Like you, I can remember grade school, but not this morning. Thank God for my desk calendar. If I don't write it down.....it's gone.

Thanks JD, that was nice of you to say! That song has good memories for me also.

Here's to friends like you two, where ever we land. I'm much more concerned about the posters than I am the moderators. I may change my mind though.

Que Sera Sera:)

[evie]

...I was thinking maybe the system there is sending out the mass emails in "packets" (200 people at a time or something) but if it is doing 'packets' it is doing it in a strange order (not by alphabet if Wings got one and Wittesea didn't, not by post count because mine was high, not by last visit because I was at OBT the day before it broke).... and I can't think of another way that a system would sort the packets... (If it is even set up to do it that way)....

The way mass mailings like these (assuming a mail was sent out to all members of BT and not just to a few addresses that survived the crash) are normally sent out is in packages of several hundred/thousand addresses. If the software is clever (which I will assume for this), it or the sending mail server bundles the addresses by server, eg. all addresses @aol.com are being bundled together and 1 single mail is then sent to that server. So, say 2000 thousand addresses at 20 different places are being sent a mail, the mail server (or even the board software) will create 20 mails with 100 receipients each.

As many of the providers have a maximum no. of receipients per mail (after all, spam is sent out the same way), these, say, 20 mails with 100 receipients are then broken down into chunks the receiving mail server accept, eg. max 50 receipients per mail.

So, in the end, in the example given, 40 mails are sent out with 50 receipients per mail.

For the assumed 50000 members of BT, this would mean quite a few mails.

If there is an error on any of these mails and the receiving mail server rejects a mail, none of the intended receipients in that mail will receive that mail and JL or whoever does the mail admin will receive an error/rejection msg (a bounce msg) instead.
If one of the intended receiving mail servers is down for...hmm...say 3 days...the mail will be rejected and none of the intended receipients in that mail will receive the mail either.

There are a few other problems that can happen which will result in a number of people not receiving the mail or receiving it delayed by several days.

In the case where single mails to everybody are generated, it can take a long time until all mails are sent; I calculate high at maybe 1/2 sec per mail which comes to 25'000 seconds which is several days...ok, I did say I calculated high, in reality a lot more mails could be generated but as I don't know the board software, I chose a high value as sending time.

I don't think that with 50'000 receipients, anybody would take the time and trouble to single anybody out for special treatment...a simple technical explanation is the much more likely reason why some people will or won't receive a mail.

cheers
eve

[Wittesea]

Thank you evie for explaining the packet thing to me. :D

I knew that mass mailings are often done in packets of some sort, I just never knew how (and it totally makes sense that the packets would be sorted by email provider).... and that also probably explains why I haven't gotten an email yet.

The email I used for registration at OBT is an uncommon email provider, so it's possible that the packets are being done in order of largest email providers first (AOL, yahoo, hotmail etc...) and the little ones that only a few people use would be done last.

Again, thank you for explaining the way servers sort and send the email packets... I always love learning about how things work :D

[evie]

Imagine those bundles being created and queued almost at the same time. Mail servers are extremely efficient at 1 job and that is to deliver mail. This process is completely impartial and normally goes on a first in, first out base. It doesn't know about big or small, it only knows about mails in/mails out.

As an example from one of the mail servers, I administer: right now there are 16 mail queues open which means that mail is waiting to be delivered to 16 different destinations to an unknown number of receipients. This particular mail server seems to be blacklisted (=they refuse to receive mail from it) by mac.com so there are 180+ msgs in the queue and they will sit there until mac.com decides to like this server again or the 3 days waiting period are up whichever comes first. Until that time, all msgs for mac.com sit there...let's say hastypastry.net was in a similar situation then all member having a mail address at mac.com would have to wait.

A small provider is more likely to have some spam prevention measurements in place than a big one. It may accept less receipients per mail than a big one or it might use what is called greylisting (the 1st mail from an unknown provider will be refused on principle; spammers hopefully won't try again whereas legal mail server will try again after a certain time) or it may have other anti spam tactics in place...all of them will at least delay the mail delivery (greylisting) if not make it impossible (no of receipients over the limit). In the latter case, it may even lock out the offending sending server for a time completely so you wouldn't ever get the mail.

In the case of delaying tactics, the mailqueue goes to the back of the queue to be sent and waits its next turn which will normally be around 20 mins later. The more times it is refused the longer it will wait before trying again.

I use the word "normally" a lot here. This is because everything I said, all times, etc. can be adjusted by the mail admins.

These are just some of the things that can go wrong; looking at all the different ways mail can and does go wrong it is sometimes very surprising that any mail arrives where it is supposed to go.

As JL gets a msg whenever a mail couldn't be delivered, he could, in theory, resend those mails but I would bet he doesn't. It is just plain too much work. A real life example from an announcement mailing list that runs here with around 2500 receipients. For every mail that is sent, we get back several 100KBs of plain text bounce msgs immediately after sending and that again over the next few days as mail servers return errors in their own sweet time. Some of them accept the mail but return errors up to 2 weeks later. Now, bounces are plain text and contain no pictures and/or formatting...I'd say on that list about 1/5th of the member addresses produce bounces. So is it reasonable to expect the list owner to clean up 500 addresses manually for every mail he sends?

Let's apply that to BT. JL sent about 50'000 msgs (if he did send a mass mailing), 1/5th bounces back (=10'000)...would anybody expect him to clean up 10'000 mail addresses manually? No? Good, because he won't.

Have I bored everybody to tears yet? :D

cheers
eve

[mrsD]

The internet never ceases to humble ME!

Did JL use the BT list from that software? Or do you think he has a separate
file? I don't remember seeing 50,000 members, either, I recall the high 30,000
the last time I looked, probably in spring.

When the MAC OS came page up, soon after the mails were sent, I don't suppose
he could access the mail addresses either? How would that work? If he is restoring a database...wouldn't that preclude access? Does he have everyone's email in his own gmail acct? An address book with 30,000 names in it?

I have Yahoo... so that is a common one.

Jeeeesh....how do the spammers do it! There is probably a short cut for THEM!:rolleyes: or a robot...etc.

Thanks Evie... I needed some education on this... I just type..I have no idea what is really happening most of the time!:p

[evie]

Did JL use the BT list from that software? Or do you think he has a separate
file? I don't remember seeing 50,000 members, either, I recall the high 30,000
the last time I looked, probably in spring.
Not much difference between 30'000 or 50'000 for this. Even if all people entered valid mail addresses, there will be some with full mailboxes, etc.

I don't know this bulletin system so I don't know where the addresses are stored; with our software, some memberdata is stored in a different place so I might be able to recover them to send them mail.

When the MAC OS came page up, soon after the mails were sent, I don't suppose
he could access the mail addresses either? How would that work? If he is restoring a database...wouldn't that preclude access? Does he have everyone's email in his own gmail acct? An address book with 30,000 names in it?
:)
I don't know his setup so I don't know where he stored the addresses but assuming that he has a working backup in place, I'd guess those addresses are available on a backup and can be recovered. I doubt very much that he has them anywhere else, there are just too many of them.

I just checked to see whether I got that mail but I haven't. With the extended headers, I could probably say a bit more but this way I have no idea.

OTOH, he may just have sent out a msg to some who sent him a mail. Again, assuming that of the people who are actually active in a forum, many sent him a mail, he may have ended up with 1000+ mails all asking what is happening, some offering to help. Sending them all a reply manually would be too much so he may have just cherry picked a few.

I have Yahoo... so that is a common one.

Jeeeesh....how do the spammers do it! There is probably a short cut for THEM!:rolleyes: or a robot...etc.
Spammers have many different ways depending on their goal; they don't just send spams, they also collect addresses by all out attacks on servers and many other ways, try to abuse other providers mail servers for sending their stuff and only then, last but by far not least, try and send their spam/scams/etc.
If you run mail servers, the Internet is a big war place with the battles taking place on every server. I spend quite a bit of my working time battling spammers and their spams.

Thanks Evie... I needed some education on this... I just type..I have no idea what is really happening most of the time!:p

No need to either :) If you throw a letter into the mailbox, you don't think of all the people/machines that have to handle it before it finally arrives at the destination and this should be much the same.

Btw. the page(s) being shown right now is/are just the standard OS X server page(s) if nothing is set up yet.

cheers
eve

[annie]

hi evie

here is the message i got with full headers.

From braintalk@gmail.com Sun Sep 24 18:10:08 2006
X-Apparently-To: address@yahoo.com via 66.163.178.119; Sun, 24 Sep 2006 18:10:17 -0700
X-Originating-IP: [199.201.145.187]
Return-Path: <www@localhost.localhost>
Authentication-Results: mta169.mail.mud.yahoo.com from=gmail.com; domainkeys=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 199.201.145.187 (EHLO localhost) (199.201.145.187) by mta169.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Sun, 24 Sep 2006 18:10:16 -0700
Received: by localhost (Postfix, from userid 70) id 073361DE4804; Sun, 24 Sep 2006 21:10:08 -0400 (EDT)
To: address@yahoo.com
Subject: Braintalk Returns!
From: "braintalk@gmail.com" <braintalk@gmail.com> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Message-ID: <200609250108.77ae6d492632@brain.hastypastry.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Priority: 3
X-Mailer: vBulletin Mail via PHP
Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 21:10:08 -0400 (EDT)
Content-Length: 331
Greetings. We had a bad software and hardware crash recently and about
a month of downtime, but Braintalk is returning! I'm in the middle of
restoring the server and installing brand new software. Thank you for
your patience, and please visit http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums in
the next few days.

Take care,
-John Lester

[evie]

Hi Annie

Thank you. I deleted the mail info to keep the addresses from being harvested/collected by spammers.
I will assume that all headers are good unlike in spams where they are often faked.


From x(at)gmail.com Sun Sep 24 18:10:08 2006
X-Apparently-To: x via 66.163.178.119; Sun, 24 Sep 2006 18:10:17 -0700
X-Originating-IP: [199.201.145.187]
X-headers are non-standard mail headers added by software on the way somewhere.
The above says that this mail was routed via the Yahoo internal mail system (66.163.178.119 is a Yahoo internal address). The originating IP points back to the IP no that is defined as belonging to brain.hastypastry.net. It could be the machine that crashed or another one that sits there in its place.

Return-Path: <www@localhost.localhost>
Authentication-Results: mta169.mail.mud.yahoo.com from=gmail.com; domainkeys=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 199.201.145.187 (EHLO localhost) (199.201.145.187) by mta169.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Sun, 24 Sep 2006 18:10:16 -0700
The Received: headers are the most interesting in a mail and the main reason why people who follow mails need the full headers.
Every place that receives a mail to pass on will add one received: header. Spammers often spoof them and put in fake nos, times, etc. but here I will assume that the information given is correct.

The above Received: header was added by Yahoo and says the following:
It got the mail from 199.201.145.187 which is the IP of brain.hastypastry.net.
This mail was most probably addressed to several people (for a single address, the receipients address would normally show up in that header).

Received: by localhost (Postfix, from userid 70) id 073361DE4804; Sun, 24 Sep 2006 21:10:08 -0400 (EDT)
The above points towards this mail having been generated programmatically; otherwise, it would have more information in it.

If the sending machine really did identify itself as localhost, I certainly would never see this mail. It would be rejected by our mail servers that insist on the sending mail servers identifying themselves with a proper name. "localhost" is, in this context, not a proper name, is very often used by spammers and therefore a mail server calling itself localhost, trying to send mail will be rejected at a lot of places.
To try and explain: you'll most probably be less likely to open the door and invite somebody inside if that somebody rings the door bell and says: "hi, my name is Smith and I have something for you", holding a weird looking package than if somebody rings the bell and says: "hi, my name is Jack Smith, here is my card clearly identifying me and the company I work for". And the same goes for mail servers.

Message-ID: <200609250108.77ae6d492632@brain.hastypastry.net>
Aha, the msg was generated by a machine calling itself brain.hastypastry.net which is defined to be the forum machine...
X-Mailer: vBulletin Mail via PHP
...and it was generated by the vBulletin software which is the forum software. So, it most probably was a mass mailing.

Again, the reminder: I assume that all headers are correct and none of them are spoofed like spammers would do it.

To summarise (with all assumptions :) ):
This was a mail generated by the forum software and it was sent via Postfix which is a mail server software. The mail we are looking at here is a mail that was sent to Yahoo mail addresses. There is no way of knowing how many people were addressed in it.

So, to answer your question, mrsd, it does seem as though the addresses either survived or were recovered. It also seems that the functionality of the forum software is at least back to a state that it can send mails again.

This mail would have been rejected at many places if hastypastry.net really did identifiy itself as localhost. At many of the places where it did arrive that have automatic spam filters, it would have ended up in the spam folder.

Curiosity won out :) ...I just went to have a look to see whether hastypastry.net attempted to send mail to me and it did. And it did try to identify itself as localhost which resulted in an automatic rejection from our end...but what I can also see is that it is taking a long time; assuming Sat. was the start of this mass mailing, the mail to me was attempted on Mon. morning (my time)/Sun. evening (local time)...it could still be at it.

cheers
eve

[artist]

**Major** round of applause (stamping of feet, rolling of drums...) Eve.
What more can I say?
all the best :)

[Joselita]

Evie,
WOW! I have to join in with Artist in giving you a major round of applause! I am completely and totally impressed and in awe! Not only that you know so much about all of this, but that you could explain it so well. Good enough for even a dunder- head like me (who happens to have a mush brain [super high pain levels right now...that always equals mush brain for me. LOL] and can't grasp lots of concepts) to understand!

Thank you very much for doing that. For taking all of the time to explain how that works. Like Mrs D, I never knew just how much went into what happens with emails once I hit that "Send" button. Very interesting to find out. Fascinating to finally have some kind of light shed on what all of those "gobbledy-gook" (previously, anyway) numbers and words and addys and what not in the headers mean. I love to find out New stuff. So, thank you again!

This also explains something that I didn't understand (lolol..like I said...that is quite a lot right now with my much brain!) about that email. Like Annie, I use Yahoo too. I didn't understand why this email turned up in my "Bulk" folder, which usually is where Yahoo directs what it thinks is possible spam (things it isn't sure about. Spam it IS sure about, it chucks and I never see), but any other emails that I have ever gotten from Braintalk have gone into my "Inbox"...where regular mail goes. I didn't understand why, and what the deal was, since the email was coming from the same place? But, now I do. Thanks to you.

I am really glad that this conversation was started, because I actually got to learn something new today! What a great way to start the day, especially one in the middle of what has so far been a cruddy week. I am taking it as a sign that this will be a Good (or at least Better, LOL) day today!

Thanks again. I hope that you have a great day today!

Take Care,
Joselita

[mrsD]

Thank you so much for this clarification Evie...

Not that I could do this myself, again in the future! <cough cough>

But I checked my full header too..and my mail is very similar.
My local host is somewhat different, but Yahoo has several hubs I believe.
and mine came just before annie's... and also says vBulletin mail via PHP.
( Sun, 24 Sep 2006 21:09:29 -0400 (EDT))

So perhaps JL sent the mails off, then took the server down and hence
we see that MacOS server page now.

So at least we know some of the data was okay on that server before
he took it down.

I have had some Braintalk messages from my PM box go into the spam folder, in the past.
They were not blocked, but just sent there by mistake. It was the typical
overflow automated message, that someone was trying to contact me, etc.
I can't recall if I reset my filter, I may have, because another place was having trouble too. It has been a while since that happened, so I really don't recall exactly.

This has been a real education for me! and also illustrates the complexity of the internet, and "making assumptions" about things --motives-- when in
reality it is just hardware/software complexities!

Thanks so much for walking us thru the "maze of email"!:D

[redjpwranglergirl]

AWESOME Evie!
Thanks!

[annie]

evie, that has got to be the clearest explanation of anything involving a computer that i have ever seen. i hope they pay you what you are worth.

i edited out my e mail address, fortunately the edit button is now working longer. i did know better than to do it, but i wasn't sure if you needed it in there so i just posted the whole thing.

thanks very much for figuring this out and for that very clear explanation.

[linniec]

Evie,
Thank you so much for your clear explanation..though I do admit that my mind dropped off halfway through your excellent translation.

[evie]

Thank you all for the compliments. :)

I work with this and other Internet related stuff every day so this is just a variation of a never ending subject :)

Annie, I have my own company and I wish I made lots of money with it :) But life interfered and while the big Internet balloon was blown up until it burst, I spent 6 months per year in hospital having surgeries and other things. I did profit from the bubble though as with any other type of company I would have had to close down whereas working in this area allowed me to stay in business :D

cheers
eve

[Val/UK]

Well I have just got in and did not have to reregister. I tried that yesterday and had no reply. When I tried again this morning I got straight in and read reregistering was unnecessary. You go in using the password and name that you had before. I have just done a post in the complementary forum and it has come up.
Val

[Val/UK]

Try again I just got straight in, there is now no need to register. My post just came up there as well in the complementary forum.
Val

[Doody]

Interesting. Well, didn't work for me! :rolleyes:

[Doody]

Maybe it's the use of a Yahoo address, don't know and right now don't care - unless and until the issue of shooting-from-the-hip moderation is addressed there. Also, information that would be useful that we all worked so hard to put togather. It would be nice to use our work to help build here rather than have to reinvestigate (in some cases I should say).