Re: [Pan-users] Re: Odd error messages

[Pete Goudreau]

Desktop is Gnome. Pan is v0.132 running under ubuntu 8.10 and these
messages show up in the std error pop-up complete with the red circle
and horizontal white bar symbol.  Doesn't happen all the time but when
it does it happens only when clicking send without any delay.

Both server and ng are too sensitive for public dissemination.

I checked the msg for the text and nothing even remotely close is there.
And the text is not reminiscent of any other text sent.  No other server
is used or any other group but one.

You're reading the description correctly, this only happens when hitting
send after composing a msg.  The reply however is shorter than the
quoted text, IIRC, in every instance.  But I do this regularly and get
the std msg which requires me to click to send anyway.  The ng in
question does not consider this poor etiquette but rather something of a
requirement.

As to copy and paste, this operation occurred after the first send
attempt with the error popup appearing carrying the first quoted text in
my original email.  The second msg appeared after the sequence of saving
as a draft, etc.  No three button mouse here although I still miss
having one (from Xerox Alto to Sun Solaris and HP-UX) so ctrl-x and
ctrl-v were used.

I always start text at the bottom of the quote or somewhere in the text
after editing to provide interleaved responses.  I don't mess with the
headers, they aren't displayed anyway, nor do I edit the first message
line and always leave a space after it, if that makes any sense.
Usually removing an x-archive line at the beginning added by the server
when outbound per my account setup or that of others.

I have a pretty good working relationship with the server admin and am
familiar with the server's error messages and their format, this isn't
one of them.  It may very well be something of an easter egg in the
ubuntu release.  However my first reaction is the machine is pwn3d.  And
I never use it for any sensitive info or any financial transactions.

The ufw was not enabled by default I discovered nor was clamAV installed
with the distro, both of which I've got running now.  The XP wireless
connection got connected a few times but through the firewall of my
router, doesn't take much though from what I understand.

I've used the system monitor and some other tools to look for traffic
and open ports, etc. but nothing particularly odd shows up.  And the
server in question requires smtpauth with ssl autentication.  SSL
authentication is also setup on the POP3 receive port per the admin's
listings at the main site.  This is for mail through the server but the
nntp connection is by username and password.

No idea how to un-pwn the box except to abandon all backups, wipe the
drive, clean reinstall XP from the recovery disk, and the same with the
ubuntu disk.  What a pita that'd be.  But I'm beginning to think this is
the only option left at this point.  Unless there's an app out there
that'll help track for this sort of thing.

Very strange behavior I agree and as I was sure, not something one would
expect as std output from pan.

Any advice/suggestions would be most welcome.

Tnx,
Pete

On Sat, 2009-05-02 at 20:31 +0000, Duncan wrote:
> Pete Goudreau <address@hidden> posted
> address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Sat, 02
> May 2009 11:28:16 -0500:
> 
> > There is something odd happening on occasion which I can't repeat.  I'll
> > write a post and hit send only to get an error message that might say,
> > "Master's in what?" or "Creative writing!" or just a caret and nothing
> > at all. Saving the post as a draft, opening the post to respond to,
> > cutting and pasting from the draft, and hitting send again doesn't
> > eliminate the problem. Restarting Pan and repeating the above sequence
> > works just fine.  A bit strange.
> 
> That is strange indeed, as I'm not sure those are from pan!
> 
> Could you specify a bit more precisely where these errors are happening, 
> dialog box, in the pan log, in a terminal window that you've started pan 
> from, or what?  What version of pan, and on what distribution?  What 
> desktop environment (KDE, GNOME, XFCE, etc) do you run?  What
> newsgroup(s) (if it's not too sensitive to want to post the name in 
> public)?  If you can point out specific messages, that may be helpful as 
> well.  What news server are you using?
> 
> Perhaps those messages are localized and you're translating them 
> differently than I'd expect?  Or perhaps it's bits of quotes from the 
> posts you are replying to (or maybe something else you were working on)?
> 
> There are two possibilities that sort of fit, but not quite.  First, if a 
> particular message has an "illegal" character, say a non-UTF-8 binary 
> character in a post marked as charset UTF-8, I've seen pan fail to quote 
> it correctly, but that's when you hit the reply button/shortcut/menu-
> item, not after you've finished writing your message and hit send, which 
> seems to be your case if I'm reading correctly.
> 
> Second, and this sounds strange but your report is a strange report, 
> maybe you're seeing some sort of interaction with the select/paste 
> mechanism.  That's why I asked if the text might be a fragment of 
> something else you had been working on.  Note that the X select/paste 
> mechanism may be different than you are used to, given that you said 
> you're new to Linux.  You can drag-select, then hit the middle mouse 
> button, and it should paste the selected content, possible from a 
> different application.  But that doesn't quite match what you are 
> describing.  Also, if you have some text selected in the message you're 
> replying to, pan will use that as a quote instead of quoting the whole 
> thing, but that doesn't sound quite like what you're talking about, 
> either.
> 
> The other possibility I can think of, as I mentioned, is that you're mis-
> translating (or maybe your distribution took some creative liberties with 
> the pan it ships) pan's normal error messages.  If you try to top-post 
> instead of putting the quote at the top and replying under it, pan will 
> warn you, as it will if the message appears to be /all/ quote, no 
> original content (as if you hit reply and send accidently), or mostly 
> quote, very little new content.  But the warning wording you quote 
> doesn't look like any I've ever seen from pan, here, which is why I asked 
> about distribution and desktop, thinking maybe it's some odd interaction 
> with something else, or strange error message translation.
> 
> The other possibility is that it's an error message of some sort from the 
> server, which would explain why I don't recognize the pan error as it's 
> not from pan.  But usually those are pretty standardized and have an 
> associated standard error number... unless of course some wise guy 
> decided to "simplify" the server errors in its config.
> 
> The only other thing I can think of is that maybe your box is 0wn3d 
> (owned, by a cracker) or something, and it's the 133+ (r4(k3r (leet 
> cracker) playing games with you.  But that hardly makes sense either, 
> mainly because most of those sorts of things are for the money these 
> days, and they're far more interested in staying stealthy and using your 
> machine as a spam or DDoS zombie than in playing 133+ mind games that'll 
> result in detection and loss of access.  But really, it's too early to 
> jump to that conclusion yet as there's way more likely stuff to consider 
> first.  But I will say I don't recognize those messages at all, making it 
> all too strange regardless of what's doing it.
>