ubuntu littered with malicious viruses, some oriented toward Linux

[Eric Dunbar]

> >Simple vacation messages would do this trick too...
> >
> >
> I have seen such things on lists, but very very rarely... I have a
> feeling that auto-replies tend to use the "from" address, whereas most
> "reply to list" lists use the "reply-to:" message header to tell the
> client what to do -- whichever, it doesn't seem to happen except in a
> very small minority of cases... and even then, I have not seen it go
> into the "downward spiral" that you fear... just one "fred is out of the
> office" to irritate folks.

Most auto-replies only send out one e-mail to each address. This is
negligible traffic compared to the number of messages lost to the
threads when people reply only to the poster (the only traffic
auto-replies generate are from the self-rightous who can turn coal
into diamond using the appropriate body orifices ;-).

Eric.