* * * * *
                                        
                How desperate do you have to be to spam someone?
                                        
This is rich. I'm starting to get a bunch of bounce messages that look like:

> From: MAILER-DAEMON@conman.org (Mail Delivery System)
> To: apache@brevard.conman.org
> Subject: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender
> Date: Tue, 8 May 2007 05:09:17 -0400 (EDT)
> 
> [-- Attachment #1: Notification --]
> [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 0.5K --]
> 
> This is the Postfix program at host brevard.conman.org.
> 
> I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to
> one or more recipients. It's attached below.
> 
> For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>
> 
> If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own
> text from the attached returned message.
> 
> The Postfix program
> 
> <porn_dvd_uk@hotmail.com>: host mx4.hotmail.com[65.54.244.104] said: 550
>     Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable (in reply to RCPT TO
>     command)
> 
> [-- Attachment #2: Delivery report --]
> [-- Type: message/delivery-status, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 0.4K --]
> 
> Reporting-Mta: dns; brevard.conman.org
> X-Postfix-Queue-Id: F272E170C522
> X-Postfix-Sender: rfc822; apache@brevard.conman.org
> Arrival-Date: Tue, 8 May 2007 05:09:16 -0400 (EDT)
> Final-Recipient: rfc822; porn_dvd_uk@hotmail.com
> Action: failed
> Status: 5.0.0
> Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; host mx4.hotmail.com[65.54.244.104] said: 550 Requested
>         action not taken: mailbox unavailable (in reply to RCPT TO command)
> 
> [-- Attachment #3: Undelivered Message --]
> [-- Type: message/rfc822, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 1.3K --]
> 
> From: sean@conman.org
> To: porn_dvd_uk@hotmail.com
> Subject: The Boston Diaries Update Notification [1178615356-28614]
> Date: Tue, 08 May 2007 05:09:16 EDT
> 
> Thank you for your interest in The Boston Diaries. To start receiving email
> notifications of new entries, you will need to reply to this email. You
> don't need to do anything other than reply to this email. Once you do that,
> you'll be entered into The Boston Diaries Update Database.
> 
> If you have no idea what this email is in reference to, someone submitted
> your email address for notification of new entries to my weblog/online
> journal (at http://boston.conman.org). If you want to, you can still reply
> and get notifications of new entries, but you can also ignore this and
> there will be no futher emails from my server. That is, unless someone
> submits your email address *again* without your knowledge.
> 
> Sean Conner
> 

Basically, some spammer is trying to spam people using my Obligatory Email
Notification form [1], but the form is very basic—only one field is supported
and the script generates a precanned email to send (shown above). That part
is very basic and I don't see what there is to exploit.

Then again, I wrote the code so I know how it works. The spammer (or
spammers; it could be multiple people) may be trying to reverse engineer the
script. Heck, if they're that curious, I'll send them the code.

But to investigate this a bit further, I modified the code to record the
request (where it came from, what the spammer is trying to send) so I can
figure out what they're actually trying to accomplish.

[1] https://boston.conman.org/

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

.