I have altered the Subject: to reflect the discussion. This is something
which someone (including myself) should have done several exchanges ago. I'm
also crossposting to news.admin.net-abuse.usenet since some administrators
of usenet servers hang out there and perhaps they can offer more insight.

On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 14:29:43 +0100
David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> On 23/01/2023 10:34, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
> > On Sun, 22 Jan 2023 13:33:37 +0100
> > David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

[...]

> >> I will say it again - it appears to be the result of a server glitch.
> >
> > I will say it again - it is the CLIENT that does the quoting of the "From:"
> > field NOT the server. The original post I saw DID NOT have my name in that
> > field.
> >
>
> You can say it as many times as you want - you are merely describing how
> things are /supposed/ to work. This was the result of a server fault
> that scrambled a post. We /know/ you did not write the post. We /know/
> that many people saw a post in this newsgroup with /your/ name in the
> "From" field. Somewhere, a Usenet server screwed up - the "From" field,
> along with the newsgroup(s), threading, and perhaps other fields, from
> one real post in a real c.l.c++ thread was mixed with the message
> content from a completely unrelated post in an unrelated group.
>
> The fact that the post /you/ saw did not appear to come from you, merely
> re-enforces the server glitch theory - different people saw different
> things on different Usenet servers.
>
>
> >> It may only have been visible in one server, it may have been passed on
> >> to some other servers but not all servers. Some people (such as myself,
> >> and Bonita) saw the original broken and header-jumbled cross post.
> >
> > And my id was in this jumbled header was it?
> >
>
> Yes.

[...]

> > Why would she need to hack it? Do even you understand how usenet works?
> >
>
> Yes, I do. I know how to make fake posts, and how they work - and I
> know this was /not/ a fake post. Making a post whose headers contain
> only one group, but which appear in another group, is not a simple fake.
> Basically, the header download from one or more newsservers (at least
> news.eternal-september.org) differed completely from the headers in the
> content of the message.

Such an unusual glitch cannot happen independently on several newsservers so
it can only have happened on one and then propagated. If it propagated then
it should still be visible on other newsservers too since there's no
automatic mechanism to fix this nor would news admins have any reason to
assume there was an error to fix manually unless they happened to be reading
the discussion.

> You can't fake that, since it is (obviously)
> not supported by the NNTP protocols. Either it is a sophisticated hack
> - and that is not realistic - or it was the result of a server glitch.

I assume "that" means that the Newsgroups: field in the header shows one
set of groups G but some server shows the message when you ask for messages
of a group P not contained in G. Yes , this would be hard to fake. The
From: line is trivial to fake since severs will only check for correct
syntax.

--
vlaho.ninja/prog

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Monday, 23 January 2023 14:21 -0000,
in article <JaMukkKxSBcM7VPWN@bongo-ra.co>,
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have altered the Subject: to reflect the discussion. This is something
> which someone (including myself) should have done several exchanges ago. I'm
> also crossposting to news.admin.net-abuse.usenet since some administrators
> of usenet servers hang out there and perhaps they can offer more insight.

I'd like to buy a vowel^W Message-ID of the mystery message.

Beyond that, the name appearing in the From header of a Usenet post is
an optional descriptor. It can be nearly anything. It cannot be
forged. (Email addresses are unique; names, not so much.)

Based on the References header of <JaMukkKxSBcM7VPWN@bongo-ra.co>
(<http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=167449837100>):

<36403165-3cf1-4b73-8ad1-da339b960339n@googlegroups.com>
(<http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=167449810000>) posted to
rec.arts.books, only: strictly limited to a single newsgroup by G2's
http2nntp interface. The article was posted using the GG posting
account associated with the valid ibshambat@gmail.com email address.

First followup (troll), from "Bonita Montero
<Bonita.Montero@gmail.com>": <tqbkrr$1ja1c$1@dont-email.me>
(<http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=167449819800>) added comp.lang.c++.
The troll includes the full quote of the original post. The
information included in the From header, of this message, may or may
not accurately reflect its origin.

X-post continued in <tqbn12$1jgmh$1@dont-email.me>
(<http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=167449840700>, from
=?UTF-8?B?w5bDtiBUaWli?= <ootiib@hot.ee>). It is in this post that
the erroneous claim, "I can find no server with 'quoted' post,"
appears. (The quoted original text appeared only in rec.arts.books,
not in comp.lang.c++.)

<ea2f3bb3-532d-4014-9acd-24fe10a1feecn@googlegroups.com>
(<http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=167449849500>) posted only to
comp.lang.c++.

etc.

> On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 14:29:43 +0100
> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> > On 23/01/2023 10:34, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
> > > On Sun, 22 Jan 2023 13:33:37 +0100
> > > David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>>> I will say it again - it appears to be the result of a server
>>>> glitch.

There is nothing here to support this claim. If supporting evidence
exists, please refer to it. This matter appears to be more the result
of a trolled user glitch.

[ snip of conjecture based bickering ]

I hope this clears up some of the confusion.

- --
David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com>
You will never find an article posted only to rec.arts.books, in
comp.lang.c++.

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On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 13:03:52 -0600
David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> wrote:
> I'd like to buy a vowel^W Message-ID of the mystery message.
>
> Beyond that, the name appearing in the From header of a Usenet post is
> an optional descriptor. It can be nearly anything. It cannot be
> forged. (Email addresses are unique; names, not so much.)

Both the name and email address can trivially be forged. The email address
doesn't have to be a real email (or even domain) , just syntactically valid.

[...]

> > On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 14:29:43 +0100
> > David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> > > On 23/01/2023 10:34, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
> > > > On Sun, 22 Jan 2023 13:33:37 +0100
> > > > David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> >>>> I will say it again - it appears to be the result of a server
> >>>> glitch.
>
> There is nothing here to support this claim. If supporting evidence
> exists, please refer to it. This matter appears to be more the result
> of a trolled user glitch.
>
> [ snip of conjecture based bickering ]
>
> I hope this clears up some of the confusion.
>
> - --
> David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com>
> You will never find an article posted only to rec.arts.books, in
> comp.lang.c++.

Not under normal circumstances but the claim is that a temporary glitch on
eternal-september caused it to happen and that David Brown saw it with his
own eyes.

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On Monday, 23 January 2023 20:06 -0000,
in article <z8dmrhuM9xNk7FY=M@bongo-ra.co>,
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 13:03:52 -0600
> David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> wrote:

>> I'd like to buy a vowel^W Message-ID of the mystery message.

>> Beyond that, the name appearing in the From header of a Usenet post
>> is an optional descriptor. It can be nearly anything. It cannot
>> be forged. (Email addresses are unique; names, not so much.)

> Both the name and email address can trivially be forged. The email address
> doesn't have to be a real email (or even domain) , just syntactically valid.

This assume facts not in evidence. While you may be able to put
whatever you want in the From header of your articles, posted via AIOE
(or using a wide variety of NNTP clients and NNTP servers), Google is
another ball of wax.

The original article, at the beginning of this thread, was posted via the
Google Groups web2news interface. This means that the posting account, with
MUST appear in the From header of article originated in this manner.
Additionally, we know that Google verified the address and account
information, at the time the posting account, was originated.

<36403165-3cf1-4b73-8ad1-da339b960339n@googlegroups.com>
<http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=167449810000>

] Injection-Info: google-groups.googlegroups.com; posting-host=2001:8004:1160:28ef:d5ae:f4e8:3aac:6009;
] posting-account=90ZYxQoAAAARzFPaCqTWUKRTGA9K_b9_

I will leave it to your propensity for spinning wheels, to verify that
each and every article posted via Google Groups and matching From
headers containing ibshambat@gmail.com, also include the identical
posting account information.

> [...]
>
> > > On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 14:29:43 +0100
> > > David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> > > > On 23/01/2023 10:34, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
> > > > > On Sun, 22 Jan 2023 13:33:37 +0100
> > > > > David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> > >
> > > [...]
> > >
> > >>>> I will say it again - it appears to be the result of a server
> > >>>> glitch.
> >
> > There is nothing here to support this claim. If supporting evidence
> > exists, please refer to it. This matter appears to be more the result
> > of a trolled user glitch.
> >
> > [ snip of conjecture based bickering ]
> >
> > I hope this clears up some of the confusion.
> >
> > - --
> > David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com>
> > You will never find an article posted only to rec.arts.books, in
> > comp.lang.c++.

> Not under normal circumstances but the claim is that a temporary
> glitch on eternal-september caused it to happen and that David Brown
> saw it with his own eyes.

I'm of the "Show Me" school. I do not care about spurious,
unsupported claims. The only glitch was human error.

I recommend a visit to an optician.

- --
David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com>
"With usenet gone, we just don't teach our kids entertainment-level
hyperbole any more." - Paul Vixie

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On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 14:46:47 -0600
David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> wrote:
> On Monday, 23 January 2023 20:06 -0000,
> in article <z8dmrhuM9xNk7FY=M@bongo-ra.co>,
> Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 13:03:52 -0600
> > David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> >> I'd like to buy a vowel^W Message-ID of the mystery message.
>
> >> Beyond that, the name appearing in the From header of a Usenet post
> >> is an optional descriptor. It can be nearly anything. It cannot
> >> be forged. (Email addresses are unique; names, not so much.)
>
> > Both the name and email address can trivially be forged. The email address
> > doesn't have to be a real email (or even domain) , just syntactically valid.
>
> This assume facts not in evidence. While you may be able to put
> whatever you want in the From header of your articles, posted via AIOE
> (or using a wide variety of NNTP clients and NNTP servers), Google is
> another ball of wax.

So when you said "in the From header of a Usenet post" you meant specifically
a post made through googlegroups. Ok , I agree then.

> The original article, at the beginning of this thread, was posted via the
> Google Groups web2news interface. This means that the posting account, with
> MUST appear in the From header of article originated in this manner.
> Additionally, we know that Google verified the address and account
> information, at the time the posting account, was originated.

[...]

Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 13:03:52 -0600 David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> wrote:

>>I'd like to buy a vowel^W Message-ID of the mystery message.

>>Beyond that, the name appearing in the From header of a Usenet post is
>>an optional descriptor. It can be nearly anything. It cannot be
>>forged. (Email addresses are unique; names, not so much.)

>Both the name and email address can trivially be forged. The email address
>doesn't have to be a real email (or even domain) , just syntactically valid.

Of course David Ritz is correct.

RFC 5536 Usenet Article Format (USEFOR)

3.1.2. From

The From header field is the same as that specified in Section 3.6.2 of
RFC5322 (with added restrictions not applicable to this discussion).

RFC 5322 Internet Message Format (MESFOR)

3.6.2 Originator Fields

from = "From:" mailbox-list CRLF

If you read 3.4. Address Specification, you learn that mailbox-list is
one or more mailboxes separated by a commas, mailbox itself is defined,
and there's a statement "A mailbox receives mail." It's a concept but does
not necessarily pertain to file storage. The standard is not a requirement
that the user read messages, so let's not get into 247 rounds of "I refuse
to use a mailbox on From because I don't want to inundated with spam." Use
a mailbox specific to the address you use on From on Usenet articles and
not one you use for personal or business communication. And if you don't
want to read messages it receives, don't read it.

If it's your mailbox, then you can make a legitimate abuse complaint if
you are indeed forged.

So "just syntactically valid" would be wrong. It receives mail.

A News server has no method to validate that the address on From is indeed
a mailbox but there are methods outside Usenet to validate a mailbox. In
his followup, David Ritz points out that Google Groups validates the
mailbox on From.

I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

On 23/01/2023 21:46, David Ritz wrote:
> On Monday, 23 January 2023 20:06 -0000,
> in article <z8dmrhuM9xNk7FY=M@bongo-ra.co>,
> Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 13:03:52 -0600
>> David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> wrote:
>

>>> You will never find an article posted only to rec.arts.books, in
>>> comp.lang.c++.
>
>> Not under normal circumstances but the claim is that a temporary
>> glitch on eternal-september caused it to happen and that David Brown
>> saw it with his own eyes.
>
> I'm of the "Show Me" school. I do not care about spurious,
> unsupported claims. The only glitch was human error.
>

I'm sorry, but you are wrong.

If you think servers - hardware and/or software - can never fail, you
are naïve beyond comprehension.

If you think it is appropriate to accuse one person you have never met
of lying, and another of trolling, based solely on your belief in the
perfection of all Usenet servers, then you should not be involving
yourself in any kind of abuse resolution or advice. You should be
asking questions first - not passing arbitrary judgement.

Someone of the "Show me" school would ask for more information. You
appear to be in the "Jump to conclusions" school.

There are limits to how much I can "show you" what happened. But I can
describe things in as much detail as practical.

I use news.eternal-september.org as a Usenet server, with Thunderbird as
the client. I am currently looking at the thread with subject "Re:
Compute Unique Numbers in a Set" started (via a cross-post from
comp.lang.c) on 08.01.2023. On one branch, posters "Bonita Montero" and
"Muttley@dastardlyhq.com" had been arguing back and forth, here in
comp.lang.c++. The penultimate post in the branch was made by Bonita
18.01.2023, 18:23, message id "tq99tp$vtqp$1@dont-email.me". Everything
looks normal.

When downloading message headers, the next message on the thread appears
to be the expected reply from Muttley. It has the same subject, and the
timestamp 19.01.2023, 10:31.

The message body here is, however, completely unexpected. It's headers
do not match the previously downloaded headers. In the message body,
the subject is "Change and Choice", the poster is "Ilya Shambat", the
newsgroup is "rec.arts.books", the id is
"36403165-3cf1-4b73-8ad1-da339b960339n@googlegroups.com", there are no
reference links to the other messages in the thread. The message
contains a rambling essay.

If I attempt to follow-up the message in Thunderbird, the Thunderbird
client sets the newsgroup to "rec.arts.books", the subject to "Re:
Compute Unique Numbers in a Set" (i.e., from the pre-downloaded headers,
not the body), and the quotation is given as "Muttley@dastardlyhq.com
wrote:". The body of the quotation is the rambling essay. This is
entirely consistent with Bonita's post - she replied to what she
believed to be a message from Muttley.

It is quite clear that there has been a glitch on the
news.eternal-september.org server. Somehow, a message body from
rec.arts.books has been crosslinked, was delivered as though it matched
the normal-looking pre-downloaded header in the thread. (I'm guessing
Muttley actually made a post in the original thread, but I am unable to
see the real message body.) The glitch appears to be limited to
news.eternal-september.org - other users of that server have said they
saw it, while it did not appear on other servers. People have reported
the existence of the rambling essay post in rec.arts.books, made by Ilya
Shambat - it was a real post, but on news.eternal-september.org the
message body was accidentally attached to the wrong header summaries for
comp.lang.c++.

Usenet server glitches are rare - client glitches are more likely. The
same glitch occurring for at least three different people is, however,
highly unlikely. And the idea that Bonita would jumped through hoops to
repost some random post from another group but made to look like it came
from Muttley so that she could comment on it - it's ridiculous.

> I recommend a visit to an optician.
>

I recommend you either listen to what happened, or bow out of this
conversation. It is possible that you have experiences or knowledge
that could help explain things - but if you think you know all the
answers before you've heard the question, there's no point in commenting.

David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>On 23/01/2023 21:46, David Ritz wrote:
>> On Monday, 23 January 2023 20:06 -0000,
>> in article <z8dmrhuM9xNk7FY=M@bongo-ra.co>,
>> Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 13:03:52 -0600
>>> David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>
>>>> You will never find an article posted only to rec.arts.books, in
>>>> comp.lang.c++.
>>
>>> Not under normal circumstances but the claim is that a temporary
>>> glitch on eternal-september caused it to happen and that David Brown
>>> saw it with his own eyes.
>>
>> I'm of the "Show Me" school. I do not care about spurious,
>> unsupported claims. The only glitch was human error.
>>
>
>I'm sorry, but you are wrong.
>
>If you think servers - hardware and/or software - can never fail, you
>are naïve beyond comprehension.

I'm not sure that is really relevent.

In this case, an unsupported assumption has been made that news
server software (e.g. Cnews, INN and successors) "glitched"
by changing the headers of a post and reposting it.

My exposure to both Cnews and INN would lead me to assert
that such a glitch is extremely unlikely. It's far more
likely that someone, perhaps Christoph/Bonita, was playing
games.

On 24/01/2023 16:36, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>> On 23/01/2023 21:46, David Ritz wrote:
>>> On Monday, 23 January 2023 20:06 -0000,
>>> in article <z8dmrhuM9xNk7FY=M@bongo-ra.co>,
>>> Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 13:03:52 -0600
>>>> David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>
>>
>>>>> You will never find an article posted only to rec.arts.books, in
>>>>> comp.lang.c++.
>>>
>>>> Not under normal circumstances but the claim is that a temporary
>>>> glitch on eternal-september caused it to happen and that David Brown
>>>> saw it with his own eyes.
>>>
>>> I'm of the "Show Me" school. I do not care about spurious,
>>> unsupported claims. The only glitch was human error.
>>>
>>
>> I'm sorry, but you are wrong.
>>
>> If you think servers - hardware and/or software - can never fail, you
>> are naïve beyond comprehension.
>
> I'm not sure that is really relevent.
>
> In this case, an unsupported assumption has been made that news
> server software (e.g. Cnews, INN and successors) "glitched"
> by changing the headers of a post and reposting it.
>
> My exposure to both Cnews and INN would lead me to assert
> that such a glitch is extremely unlikely. It's far more
> likely that someone, perhaps Christoph/Bonita, was playing
> games.
>

The assertion of a server glitch is /not/ unsupported. I have
explained, in detail, exactly how things appeared. Both I and another
news.eternal-september.org user (red floyd) have said they saw the
original spurious post - the one Bonita replied to. I am not talking
about Bonita's reply that everyone saw, but the original spurious post
that she replied to.

If the only evidence was Bonita's post, then I could understand if
people thought she was playing games - truly weird, and out of character
games though they may be. But do you really believe that I, and red
floyd, have been conspiring with Bonita and are making up everything?

Unless you think I am deliberately lying, you will have to accept that
the spurious post existed. We all know that such a newsgroup-jumping
post should not have occurred in normal functioning behaviour. I assert
that this could only have come from one of two causes - a server glitch,
or the result (or side-effect) of a deliberate hack. I certainly do not
believe that Bonita would be behind such a hack, though it is vaguely
conceivable that there has been a completely different hack into the
news.eternal-september.org machine and this jumbled post was an
unexpected side-effect.

I can find no explanation that is more feasible than a server glitch.
Note that this does not necessarily mean a flaw in the software.
news.eternal-september.org is a low budget affair - in the past, they
have been pulled completely offline by hardware faults, dead disks, and
the like. We don't need to look any further than a single-event upset -
a bad memory cell, a bad disk read, a power fluctuation, a cosmic ray in
the wrong place - to see a single mistake. Or maybe it /is/ software -
an obscure race condition, a bug in the kernel.

I am quite happy to accept that such server glitches are extremely
unlikely. But extremely unlikely events happen sometimes.

On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 14:20:19 +0100
David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> It is quite clear that there has been a glitch on the
> news.eternal-september.org server. Somehow, a message body from
> rec.arts.books has been crosslinked, was delivered as though it matched
> the normal-looking pre-downloaded header in the thread. (I'm guessing
> Muttley actually made a post in the original thread, but I am unable to
> see the real message body.) The glitch appears to be limited to
> news.eternal-september.org - other users of that server have said they
> saw it, while it did not appear on other servers. People have reported
> the existence of the rambling essay post in rec.arts.books, made by Ilya
> Shambat - it was a real post, but on news.eternal-september.org the
> message body was accidentally attached to the wrong header summaries for
> comp.lang.c++.
>
> Usenet server glitches are rare - client glitches are more likely. The
> same glitch occurring for at least three different people is, however,
> highly unlikely.

It could be a Thunderbird issue. Note the following :

From: Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Compute Unique Numbers in a Set
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 15:42:54 +0100
Message-ID: <tqbkrr$1ja1c$1@dont-email.me>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101
Thunderbird/102.6.1

From: red floyd <no.spam.here@its.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Compute Unique Numbers in a Set
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 08:42:51 -0800
Message-ID: <tqbrub$1kco3$1@redfloyd.dont-email.me>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101
Thunderbird/102.6.1

From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
Subject: Re: Server glitch vs other possibilities (Was : Compute Unique
Numbers in a Set)
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2023 18:30:21 +0100
Message-ID: <tqp4jd$7ik0$1@dont-email.me>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101
Thunderbird/102.4.2

All 3 of you use Thunderbird. Not precisely the same version but close. I assume
you have tried to reproduce the steps which originally led you to see the defective
post and you can no longer reproduce them.

--
vlaho.ninja/prog

David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>On 24/01/2023 16:36, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>>> On 23/01/2023 21:46, David Ritz wrote:
>>>> On Monday, 23 January 2023 20:06 -0000,
>>>> in article <z8dmrhuM9xNk7FY=M@bongo-ra.co>,
>>>> Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 13:03:52 -0600
>>>>> David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>
>>>>>> You will never find an article posted only to rec.arts.books, in
>>>>>> comp.lang.c++.
>>>>
>>>>> Not under normal circumstances but the claim is that a temporary
>>>>> glitch on eternal-september caused it to happen and that David Brown
>>>>> saw it with his own eyes.
>>>>
>>>> I'm of the "Show Me" school. I do not care about spurious,
>>>> unsupported claims. The only glitch was human error.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I'm sorry, but you are wrong.
>>>
>>> If you think servers - hardware and/or software - can never fail, you
>>> are naïve beyond comprehension.
>>
>> I'm not sure that is really relevent.
>>
>> In this case, an unsupported assumption has been made that news
>> server software (e.g. Cnews, INN and successors) "glitched"
>> by changing the headers of a post and reposting it.
>>
>> My exposure to both Cnews and INN would lead me to assert
>> that such a glitch is extremely unlikely. It's far more
>> likely that someone, perhaps Christoph/Bonita, was playing
>> games.
>>
>
>The assertion of a server glitch is /not/ unsupported. I have
>explained, in detail, exactly how things appeared. Both I and another
>news.eternal-september.org user (red floyd) have said they saw the
>original spurious post - the one Bonita replied to. I am not talking
>about Bonita's reply that everyone saw, but the original spurious post
>that she replied to.
>
>If the only evidence was Bonita's post, then I could understand if
>people thought she was playing games - truly weird, and out of character
>games though they may be. But do you really believe that I, and red
>floyd, have been conspiring with Bonita and are making up everything?

It was not my intention to cast doubt on observations, but rather
to cast doubt that it was due to a "server glitch".

>I can find no explanation that is more feasible than a server glitch.

Does eternel-september.org honor cancels?

On 24/01/2023 19:50, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>>
>> If the only evidence was Bonita's post, then I could understand if
>> people thought she was playing games - truly weird, and out of character
>> games though they may be. But do you really believe that I, and red
>> floyd, have been conspiring with Bonita and are making up everything?
>
> It was not my intention to cast doubt on observations, but rather
> to cast doubt that it was due to a "server glitch".
>

Fair enough. But how would a joke post by Bonita be visible in one
server only? How would it break Usenet server setups by having a
mismatch between the header and the message body?

>
>> I can find no explanation that is more feasible than a server glitch.
>
> Does eternel-september.org honor cancels?
>

I don't know.

I have just tried taking a new newsreader (pan - since I am somewhat
familiar with it, and it's a quick apt-get away) and connected to
news.eternal-september.org. I downloaded the past 20 days of headers
for comp.lang.c++. Sure enough, the bad post is there. In the list of
headers, it appears to be a post from Muttley on 19.01.2023 at 10:31, in
reply to Bonita. Click on the header and look at the post, and the
subject, from field, data, newsgroup, etc., are all wrong.

If I look in Google Groups, I see the same header for a post from
Muttley at that time, but this time the body is correct - it is clearly
a reply from Muttley to Bonita.

news.eternal-september.org is giving out the wrong message body for that
header.

I encourage you and anyone else who doubts this to connect to
news.eternal-september.org and try it yourself. You need an account,
but it is free and quickly made, and the experiment will only take a few
minutes.

I give no credit to the idea that Bonita is capable of making a hack on
that server to produce this effect. I give no credit to the idea that
she would do so, in this way, if she were able to. If there is an
alternative explanation to a server glitch (hardware and/or software), I
would be happy to hear it.

On 24/01/2023 18:47, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 14:20:19 +0100
> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
>> It is quite clear that there has been a glitch on the
>> news.eternal-september.org server. Somehow, a message body from
>> rec.arts.books has been crosslinked, was delivered as though it matched
>> the normal-looking pre-downloaded header in the thread. (I'm guessing
>> Muttley actually made a post in the original thread, but I am unable to
>> see the real message body.) The glitch appears to be limited to
>> news.eternal-september.org - other users of that server have said they
>> saw it, while it did not appear on other servers. People have reported
>> the existence of the rambling essay post in rec.arts.books, made by Ilya
>> Shambat - it was a real post, but on news.eternal-september.org the
>> message body was accidentally attached to the wrong header summaries for
>> comp.lang.c++.
>>
>> Usenet server glitches are rare - client glitches are more likely. The
>> same glitch occurring for at least three different people is, however,
>> highly unlikely.
>
> It could be a Thunderbird issue. Note the following :
>
> All 3 of you use Thunderbird. Not precisely the same version but close. I assume
> you have tried to reproduce the steps which originally led you to see the defective
> post and you can no longer reproduce them.
>

You are correct that we all use Thunderbird, and it is definitely
something I considered. More relevantly, however, we all use
news.eternal-september.org. And I have just tested using a clean
installation of pan as an alternative newsreader, and seen exactly the
same effect.

I don't know why you think I can no longer reproduce the effect of the
broken post - I have made no such suggestion, precisely because I /can/
replicate it. I still see it on two different computers with
Thunderbird, and now also with Pan.

For convenience, I have taken a screenshot of the effect. I have not
used this site "paste.pics" before, and I apologise if there are
unwanted adverts or other effects. If you are sceptical of clicking the
link, then I can happily email the screenshot. But it seems a quick and
easy way to make a link to the screenshot.

<https://paste.pics/b4149f38abb4e210da0a71886714d014>

Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net> wrote:

>>. . .

>Does eternel-september.org honor cancels?

It does not honor third-party cancels. It will honor first-party cancels
using the Cancel-Lock protocol but not a cancel control message without
using Cancel-Lock.

In news.admin.net-abuse.usenet Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
> It does not honor third-party cancels. It will honor first-party cancels
> using the Cancel-Lock protocol but not a cancel control message without
> using Cancel-Lock.

In the past, it also had issues handling continuation Cancel-Lock lines,
I reported the problem to the newsmaster who did not reply.

--
Attention: limitez le nombre de lignes de citation à l'essentiel, sinon
je ne verrai pas votre réponse. Et si vous écrivez souvent des bobards,
je ne vous lirai plus et je recommanderai (NoCeM) de ne plus vous lire.

David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>On 24/01/2023 18:47, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
>> On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 14:20:19 +0100
>> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
>>> It is quite clear that there has been a glitch on the
>>> news.eternal-september.org server. Somehow, a message body from
>>> rec.arts.books has been crosslinked, was delivered as though it matched
>>> the normal-looking pre-downloaded header in the thread. (I'm guessing
>>> Muttley actually made a post in the original thread, but I am unable to
>>> see the real message body.) The glitch appears to be limited to
>>> news.eternal-september.org - other users of that server have said they
>>> saw it, while it did not appear on other servers. People have reported
>>> the existence of the rambling essay post in rec.arts.books, made by Ilya
>>> Shambat - it was a real post, but on news.eternal-september.org the
>>> message body was accidentally attached to the wrong header summaries for
>>> comp.lang.c++.
>>>
>>> Usenet server glitches are rare - client glitches are more likely. The
>>> same glitch occurring for at least three different people is, however,
>>> highly unlikely.
>>
>> It could be a Thunderbird issue. Note the following :
>>
>> All 3 of you use Thunderbird. Not precisely the same version but close. I assume
>> you have tried to reproduce the steps which originally led you to see the defective
>> post and you can no longer reproduce them.
>>
>
>You are correct that we all use Thunderbird, and it is definitely
>something I considered. More relevantly, however, we all use
>news.eternal-september.org. And I have just tested using a clean
>installation of pan as an alternative newsreader, and seen exactly the
>same effect.
>
>I don't know why you think I can no longer reproduce the effect of the
>broken post - I have made no such suggestion, precisely because I /can/
>replicate it. I still see it on two different computers with
>Thunderbird, and now also with Pan.
>
>For convenience, I have taken a screenshot of the effect. I have not
>used this site "paste.pics" before, and I apologise if there are
>unwanted adverts or other effects. If you are sceptical of clicking the
>link, then I can happily email the screenshot. But it seems a quick and
>easy way to make a link to the screenshot.
>
><https://paste.pics/b4149f38abb4e210da0a71886714d014>

Mea Culpa, you are correct that eternel-september has glitched
the body of that post. My NNTP provider provides the correct
body for that post.

Path: not-for-mail
^From: Muttley@dastardlyhq.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Compute Unique Numbers in a Set
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 09:31:52 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server
Message-ID: <tqb2m7$1aqa$1@gioia.aioe.org>
References: <todbqe$16sg$1@gioia.aioe.org> <tpdfp6$3osch$1@dont-email.me>
<tpdim3$3p3kb$1@dont-email.me> <tpgsar$5mge$1@dont-email.me>
<tphg58$866f$1@dont-email.me> <tpr12i$1i7r6$1@dont-email.me>
<tq14n7$2cgbf$1@dont-email.me> <tq1770$2ch5a$2@dont-email.me>
<ee5874c7-be6d-4bc5-902b-1a04bfa7003en@googlegroups.com>
<tq32sn$2lmca$1@dont-email.me> <tq34ui$2lmca$2@dont-email.me>
<tq3g9r$2nhg2$1@dont-email.me> <tq3k8q$2ngf9$1@dont-email.me>
<tq3uhs$16if$1@gioia.aioe.org> <tq4an1$2s02t$1@dont-email.me>
<tq5ln0$35a9d$1@dont-email.me> <tq5prq$1u45$1@gioia.aioe.org>
<tq66tg$38bg3$1@dont-email.me>
<3d614abf-c869-4288-8837-2a7e9c11050bn@googlegroups.com>
<tq6g0v$39t2c$1@dont-email.me> <tq6iht$39uah$1@dont-email.me>
<tq6kpf$1n24$1@gioia.aioe.org> <tq6l7g$3ap58$1@dont-email.me>
<tq8dpr$c91$1@gioia.aioe.org> <tq8op8$t160$1@dont-email.me>
<tq9605$1mq6$1@gioia.aioe.org> <tq966l$v9v8$1@dont-email.me>
<tq96f8$1upf$1@gioia.aioe.org> <tq98fa$vli9$1@dont-email.me>
<tq99d0$1ece$1@gioia.aioe.org> <tq99tp$vtqp$1@dont-email.me>
Injection-Info: gioia.aioe.org; logging-data="43850";
posting-host="QImplQW63EVMF2Hp+OxW0A.user.gioia.aioe.org";
mail-complaints-to="abuse@aioe.org";
X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.9.2
X-Received-Bytes: 2484

On Wed, 18 Jan 2023 18:23:55 +0100
Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> wrote:
>Am 18.01.2023 um 18:14 schrieb Muttley@dastardlyhq.com:
>
>> I was simply making a point that if you don't care about actual randomness
>> then standard RPGs are fine.
>
>With that ?
>
>| I'll say again - there is no such thing as random for formula generated
>| "random" number sequences. Given the same start conditions the same
>sequence
>| will be generated whether its 2^19937 or 2^infinity. You'd be better
>off using
>| /dev/random, at least its entropy comes from nominally external sources so
>| is unpredictable in a busy enviroment.
>
>Absolutely not.

Really? How would go about predicting what packets will arrive on the network
or when a user will press a key then?
>

On 24/01/2023 19:56, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>
> Mea Culpa, you are correct that eternel-september has glitched
> the body of that post. My NNTP provider provides the correct
> body for that post.
The cross-post was created by Bonita Montero according to the headings
pasted below. I checked it in "rec.arts.books" newsgroup and the first
post under "Compute Unique Numbers in a Set" was by Bonita in which she
said "Are you the twin-brother of Amine Moulay Ramdane ?". She didn't
add anything relevant to the Unique numbers in that post.

I don't think there is anything to suggest that there was a server
glitch but E-S did have some problems in the last two weeks when some
posts went missing but it has nothing to say that headers or bodies of
the posts were changed. I use E-S from time to time when I am looking
for something

Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Compute Unique Numbers in a Set
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 15:42:54 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 33
Message-ID: <tqbkrr$1ja1c$1@dont-email.me>
References: <36403165-3cf1-4b73-8ad1-da339b960339n@googlegroups.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 14:42:03 -0000 (UTC)
Injection-Info: reader01.eternal-september.org; posting-host="d60884746d895ed8ca47bc72fc0457ae";
logging-data="1681452"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18J6P2KH2llFhvWVE1iFJYe+tuBgVnwBzU="
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101
Thunderbird/102.6.1
Cancel-Lock: sha1:uQB3MZbITntrXxJyecyiI2kbvjs=
In-Reply-To: <36403165-3cf1-4b73-8ad1-da339b960339n@googlegroups.com>
Content-Language: de-DE
Xref: reader01.eternal-september.org rec.arts.books:26567 comp.lang.c++:137665

On 24/01/2023 23:00, Manu Raju wrote:
> On 24/01/2023 19:56, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>
>> Mea Culpa, you are correct that eternel-september has glitched
>> the body of that post. My NNTP provider provides the correct
>> body for that post.
> The cross-post was created by Bonita Montero according to the headings
> pasted below. I checked it in "rec.arts.books" newsgroup and the first
> post under "Compute Unique Numbers in a Set" was by Bonita in which she
> said "Are you the twin-brother of Amine Moulay Ramdane ?". She didn't
> add anything relevant to the Unique numbers in that post.
>
> I don't think there is anything to suggest that there was a server
> glitch but E-S did have some problems in the last two weeks when some
> posts went missing but it has nothing to say that headers or bodies of
> the posts were changed. I use E-S from time to time when I am looking
> for something
>
Of all the things said in this thread, I find it surprising that so many
people are again and again focusing on the wrong thing.

Bonita made the post you refer to. No one is in any doubt about that.
It is not an issue - she made a post, cross-posted to comp.lang.c++ and
rec.arts.books. It was a normal post - no server glitches or any other
nonsense.

The issue is the post that Bonita replied to when she made that post.
It is /that/ post that was special. On news.eternal-september.org, the
headers said it was a post from Muttley in comp.lang.c++ as part of the
conversation they'd been having. On all other servers, the message body
matched that and had a post from Muttley. But on
news.eternal-september.org, the message body sent by the server was for
a post in rec.arts.books. Bonita assumed that /Muttley/ had tried to
make the rambling essay post to rec.arts.books, but had got confused and
sent it to comp.lang.c++ instead. (I thought so too, until I realised
later that it was a server glitch.) To most people, her own post looked
confused and possibly malicious.

It would be helpful if people read the information about what happened -
I've explained it often enough. I've posted a screenshot link. I've
posted instructions about how you can see the problem for yourself. It
was a server glitch.

Now, it is possible that someone from news.admin.net-abuse.usenet can
give some useful insight into how the glitch could have occurred, or if
such things have happened before, or if it should be reported back to
news.eternal-september.org. That would be useful. Telling us again
that Bonita made the post that everyone knows Bonita made, is less useful.

On Tuesday, 24 January 2023 17:47 -0000,
in article <B1jyOFXZ9kwyO2oB1@bongo-ra.co>,
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

> It could be a Thunderbird issue.
[...]

Keep guessing.

--
David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com>
"Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel." - Jimi Hendrix (1942-70)

David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> writes:
> On Tuesday, 24 January 2023 18:50 -0000,
> in article <tLVzL.775660$GNG9.378305@fx18.iad>,
> Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>
>> Does eternel-september.org honor cancels?
>
> This, like the vast majority of this thread, is irrelevant.

It's certainly irrelevant to comp.lang.c++. I suggest
dropping comp.lang.c++ from any replies and posting only to
news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.

Personally, I didn't see the beginning of this brouhaha, since I've
blocked Bonita's posts, but when I saw the discussion I made an
initial assumption about what had happened. Having followed the
discussion, it appears that *either* a particular user created a
forgery *or* a server glitch made it appear that way.

I do not care which. I ask those who do to discuss it elsewhere.

(If this was trolling, it was spectacularly successful.)

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
Working, but not speaking, for XCOM Labs
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */

Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:
>David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> writes:
>>Tuesday, 24 January 2023 18:50 -0000, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home>:

>>>Does eternel-september.org honor cancels?

>>This, like the vast majority of this thread, is irrelevant.

>It's certainly irrelevant to comp.lang.c++. I suggest
>dropping comp.lang.c++ from any replies and posting only to
>news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.

>Personally, I didn't see the beginning of this brouhaha, since I've
>blocked Bonita's posts, but when I saw the discussion I made an
>initial assumption about what had happened. Having followed the
>discussion, it appears that *either* a particular user created a
>forgery *or* a server glitch made it appear that way.

>I do not care which. I ask those who do to discuss it elsewhere.

>(If this was trolling, it was spectacularly successful.)

You crossposted and posted off topic and troll fed to ask other people
to stop crossposting and to stop posting off topic and to stop troll
feeding.

Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:
>David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> writes:
>>Tuesday, 24 January 2023 18:50 -0000, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home>:

>>>Does eternel-september.org honor cancels?

>>This, like the vast majority of this thread, is irrelevant.

>It's certainly irrelevant to comp.lang.c++. I suggest
>dropping comp.lang.c++ from any replies and posting only to
>news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.

>Personally, I didn't see the beginning of this brouhaha, since I've
>blocked Bonita's posts, but when I saw the discussion I made an
>initial assumption about what had happened. Having followed the
>discussion, it appears that *either* a particular user created a
>forgery *or* a server glitch made it appear that way.

>I do not care which. I ask those who do to discuss it elsewhere.

>(If this was trolling, it was spectacularly successful.)

You crossposted and posted off topic and troll fed to ask other people
to stop crossposting and to stop posting off topic and to stop troll
feeding.

On 25/01/2023 01:17, Sn!pe wrote:
> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> Now, it is possible that someone from news.admin.net-abuse.usenet can
>> give some useful insight into how the glitch could have occurred, or if
>> such things have happened before, or if it should be reported back to
>> news.eternal-september.org. That would be useful. Telling us again
>>
>
> If you read e-s.support you would know the definitive answer.
> AIUI the overview database became desynchronised from the
> main db (I don't know why). Ray, the admin, took the server
> down for three hours to resynchronise. See:-
>
> Message-ID: <m27cxipaip.fsf@raybanana.net>
>
> <http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=167460564300>
>

Thanks for that. That confirms the matter - it was a server glitch,
which confused people and led to inappropriate posts, misunderstandings
and unfounded accusations. And the newsserver admin is dealing with it.

I'd rather not get involved in the e-s.support group - it is not
something I am particularly interested in or knowledgeable about. But
if you think anything I wrote previously in this thread describing the
symptoms, or the screenshot I posted, would be of any help to Ray then
please feel free to pass it on to him.

On 25/01/2023 03:25, David Ritz wrote:

(snipping a bit for brevity)

>
>>> I'm of the "Show Me" school. I do not care about spurious,
>>> unsupported claims. The only glitch was human error.
>
>> I'm sorry, but you are wrong.
>
> While that may be possible, it is unlikely in this case. You, on the
> other hand, are simply mistaken about what you believe you saw.
>

Again, you are wrong. I am not mistaken, and this has been confirmed in
several ways. Please read my other posts in this thread to see my
descriptions of the problem and how it appeared, details of the message
ID's, a description of how to replicate the issue, and a screenshot
showing it.

Oh, wait - you /did/ read them, as you quoted them below. And yet you
deny them blindly.

There was also a post from Sn!pe confirming that the admin of the
news.eternal-september.org was aware there had been a synchronisation
issue between the overview database and the main message database on
that server - /exactly/ the kind of server glitch that could lead to the
effect seen.

> What, pray tell, is the M-ID for the original essay, as you observed
> it on ES? Show me.
>

See above - I did.

> In this specific incidence, I have yet to see anything which supports
> this notion. Show me.
>
>> If you think servers - hardware and/or software - can never fail,
>> you are naïve beyond comprehension.
>
> I am not so inclined. Software and hardware failures are a certainty.

And yet you conclude - with certainty - that there was no failure here?

>
>> If you think it is appropriate to accuse one person you have never
>> met of lying, and another of trolling, based solely on your belief
>> in the perfection of all Usenet servers, then you should not be
>> involving yourself in any kind of abuse resolution or advice. You
>> should be asking questions first - not passing arbitrary judgement.
>
> Being confused and intentionally spreading falsehoods are different
> things. You are simply mistaken.
>

Fair enough.

> To review:
>
> <02q63458-1orq-4135-9358-994371poq6o8@zvaqfcevat.pbz>
> <(http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=167454810700
>
> DR> Based on the References header of <JaMukkKxSBcM7VPWN@bongo-ra.co>
> DR> (<http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=167449837100>):
> DR>
> DR> <36403165-3cf1-4b73-8ad1-da339b960339n@googlegroups.com>
> DR> (<http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=167449810000>) posted to
> DR> rec.arts.books, only: strictly limited to a single newsgroup by G2's
> DR> http2nntp interface. The article was posted using the GG posting
> DR> account associated with the valid ibshambat@gmail.com email address.
>
> This is the essay, titled "Change and Choice" which appeared only in
> rec.arts.books. This article never appeared in comp.lang.c++, except
> as quoted, in full:

Incorrect. You are mistaken.

The article did not appear in comp.lang.c++ on any of the newsservers
/you/ looked at. It /did/ appear in comp.lang.c++ on
news.eternal-september.org.

I do not know if it also appears in rec.arts.books on
news.eternal-september.org - I have not looked at that group.

(It also appeared in a quotation in the post made by Bonita. That was
made as a normal post by Bonita, quoting the message as it appeared on
news.eternal-september.org.)

>
> I am asking you to show me the M-ID for the article, "Change and
> Choice," in comp.lang.c++.
>
> AGAIN, <36403165-3cf1-4b73-8ad1-da339b960339n@googlegroups.com> never
> appeared in comp.lang.c++. No matter how long or hard one looks for
> this article in comp.lang.c++, on any NNTP server, one will not find
> it.
>

Incorrect. Again, you are mistaken. It appears on the server
news.eternal-september.org in the group comp.lang.c++, exactly as I said
it does. This is the result of a server glitch - a synchronisation
issue between the overview database and the main database.

I believe I am safe in asserting that you have not checked /every/ NNTP
server for this post. In particular, I am entirely confident that you
have not looked on the relevant server - news.eternal-september.org.

> If you believe otherwise, show me; make me eat my words.
>

I have shown you. I have given a screenshot, and detailed instructions
on how to see the problem for yourself. That requires you to make an
account on news.eternal-september.org so that you can see the problem there.

I hope that you will do so. You will learn a little about what can go
wrong in Usenet servers, and perhaps also why it is not good to jump to
conclusions or make too many claims before you have looked at the details.

> See <http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=167449819800>.
>

I am aware of how the messages appear on other servers (I used Google
Groups to check, for practical convenience). Other servers did not see
the mismatch between the overview header and the message body.

>
> NOTE: I am not calling anyone a troll. This followup, purporting to
> be from Bonita.Montero@gmail.com, IS the troll: bait trailed behind a
> boat, in order to catch fish. It was quite a success, as the bait was
> taken, hook, line and sinker, by several of the unsuspecting, if
> somewhat naïve readers of comp.lang.c++.
>
> ADDITIONALLY, I have nothing to irrefutably identify this post as
> actually being originated by Bonita.Montero@gmail.com, as ES users are
> able to put pretty much whatever they desire into a From header. As
> stated previously, it may or may not be from Bonita.
>
> If it is from Bonita.Montero@gmail.com, fine. If not, and
> Bonita.Montero@gmail.com is an address active and assigned to another
> Gmail user, there may be a basis for forgery complaint.

We are familiar with Bonita in comp.lang.c++. Yes, she posted it. No,
it was not a troll - it was a somewhat snarky response to what she
thought was a mixed up post by Muttley. There are plenty of people here
who dislike some of Bonita's habits - but I have no doubts at all that
she genuinely believed Muttley had written that rambling essay for
rec.arts.books, and had accidentally cross-posted it to comp.lang.c++.
I thought so too, when I first saw it - people accidentally posting to
the wrong group is much more common than server glitches.

Bonita is guilty of blindly quoting an entire OT post and top-posting a
one-line comment on it. That's not good Usenet etiquette. But it was
not trolling, forgery, or intentional misrepresentation - and I do not
like to see anyone falsely accused of that. It is correct that Muttley
did not write the original essay - and it is therefore incorrect for
Bonita's post to have the attribution "Muttley wrote ...". But that
attribution is because the newsserver Bonita used,
news.eternal-september.org, had attached the essay message body to the
overview header of a post Muttley /did/ write.

> ÖT> BM probably made it up. I can find no server with "quoted" post.
>
> As demonstrated, _this_ was the glitch. It involved neither software
> nor hardware. This was a wetware glitch, likely based on a search in
> the wrong newsgroup..

Incorrect. Again, people who are not using news.eternal-september.org
did not see the quoted post. People who use news.eternal-september.org,
did see it.

>
>> There are limits to how much I can "show you" what happened.
>
> You don't have much to show me, then, do you?
>

I later found I could show you more - including a screenshot for your
convenience.

>> But I can describe things in as much detail as practical.
>
> Your descriptions must be taken with a grain of salt, as I am unable
> to verify your interpretation.
>

No salt is needed. Unless you have already jumped to a conclusion and
are unwilling to look at evidence and information, then you should have
realised that my experience of the post is different from yours. This
should lead to a line of inquiry of /why/ it is different. Was it a
temporary thing? Something local to my computer? An issue with my
newsreader client, or with the server I used? How many people saw what
I saw, how many saw something different? What are the common factors
distinguishing the groups?

Of course, that requires you to be of the "Sometimes I don't know
everything" and "Sometimes different people see different things"
schools. Being of the "Show me" school doesn't help if you are not
willing to look when people show you.

I had already figured out, before the thread was cross-posted to
news.admin.net-abuse.usenet, that this was a server glitch that had not
propagated to all servers - though I did not know at the time that it
was found only on the one news.eternal-september.org server.

>> I use news.eternal-september.org as a Usenet server, with Thunderbird as
>> the client.
>
> Both are irrelevant.

On Tuesday, 24 January 2023 20:46 +0100,
in article <tqpcje$8v5p$3@dont-email.me>,
David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

> On 24/01/2023 18:47, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:

>> On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 14:20:19 +0100
>> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

>>> It is quite clear that there has been a glitch on the
>>> news.eternal-september.org server. [...]

>>> Usenet server glitches are rare - client glitches are more likely.
>>> The same glitch occurring for at least three different people is,
>>> however, highly unlikely.

>> It could be a Thunderbird issue. Note the following :

>> All 3 of you use Thunderbird. Not precisely the same version but
>> close. I assume you have tried to reproduce the steps which
>> originally led you to see the defective post and you can no longer
>> reproduce them.

> You are correct that we all use Thunderbird, and it is definitely
> something I considered. More relevantly, however, we all use
> news.eternal-september.org. And I have just tested using a clean
> installation of pan as an alternative newsreader, and seen exactly
> the same effect.

> I don't know why you think I can no longer reproduce the effect of
> the broken post - I have made no such suggestion, precisely because
> I /can/ replicate it. I still see it on two different computers with
> Thunderbird, and now also with Pan.

> For convenience, I have taken a screenshot of the effect. I have
> not used this site "paste.pics" before, and I apologise if there are
> unwanted adverts or other effects. If you are sceptical of clicking
> the link, then I can happily email the screenshot. But it seems a
> quick and easy way to make a link to the screenshot.

> <https://paste.pics/b4149f38abb4e210da0a71886714d014>

It appears that Thunderbird and/or Pan is/are playing silly buggers
with threading. We'd have a better idea of what was going on, if the
display headers included the Newsgroups information.

Better still, what do you see, when you look at the headers? What do
you see in the Newsgroups header? What do you see in the Xref header?
(The Xref header is added by the NNTP server, from which the article
is being retrieved.)

If only rec.arts.books is listed in the Xref header, that article
appears only there on the ES spool. If comp.lang.c++ is also
included, it indicates a server side error.

Speaking of Thunderbird flakiness, while "Re. Compu..." appears in the
article list, while the Subject of the displayed article clearly shows
"Change and Choice."

--
David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com>
Be kind to animals; kiss a shark.