[aprssig] Aprissig messages authors

[Tom Hayward]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 1:10 PM, Floyd Rodgers via aprssig
<aprssig at tapr.org> wrote:
> Since about May 2015 every message from the reflector shows the same From
> "TAPR APRS Mailing List"
> I vaguely recall there was a technical issue with reflected messages (those
> posted where source and author) did not agree causing mass rejected messages
> to the originating server. Other message reflectors seem to have solved the
> issue differently and allowed the actual author to be seen without digging
> down into the headers.
>
> Does this annoy anyone besides me?

Yes!

> Is there no other technical way to resolve the origination problem?

The underlying issue is that a number of email providers (including
yahoo.com) have implemented a DMARC policy that instructs other mail
providers and mail clients to drop mail from yahoo.com that does not
have a matching DKIM signature. The signature is usually based on the
message body and subject. As you may have noticed, the mailing list
adds [aprssig] to the subject and a footer to the body, invalidating
the signature.

The simplest solution is to not allow people with these mail providers
to take part in discussions on the mailing list, but this doesn't go
over very well.

Mailman version 2.1.16 added the feature we see used on this list:
Rewrite (Munge) the From: header with the posters name 'via the list'
and the list's address and merge the poster's address into Reply-To:

As you say, this is annoying. It is applied to every message, even
those from mail servers without the string DMARC policy.

As an improvement, a new feature was released in version 2.1.18 that
allows only munging the From header for messages from providers with
the strict DMARC policy. For messages from people like you and me with
no DMARC policy, this brings the behavior back to the familiar mailing
list standard (no rewrite of the From header). This list is running
version 2.1.18, so it could be switched to this mode if the admins
desire.

More information:
http://wiki.list.org/DEV/DMARC

Tom KD7LXL