[mdlug] Email Problem

[Jeff Hanson]

On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 2:20 PM, Robert Jim Fulner <fulner at gmail.com> wrote:
> OK,
>
> So this isn't directly a GNU/Linux question, but installing a distribution
> of GNU/Linux meant for old hardware may be my friend's only solution.
>
> I have a friend of mine who uses only his AT&T email account. (I tried to
> get him to switch a while back, but you know how some folks get attached to
> their email address). Even though he pays AT&T for his Internet connection,
> he hasn't been able to check his email at home for a long time. He has
> always used the AT&T Yahoo! webmail interface to to check his email He has
> an old machine that is still running Windows 98. A while back the web
> interface stopped working due to the hardware/software limitations (I get
> the same thing when I try to check my AT&T yahoo account on my OLPC XO
> machine). As such for the last year or more he's being going to the library
> twice a week to check his email.
>

I've noticed that Yahoo!'s mail interface stops working after a while
on Firefox if AdBlock is active.  I have to log out of Yahoo!, disable
AdBlock, clear cookies, then login to Yahoo! again to get it working.
I can reactivate AdBlock after that.  I think they're using an
anti-block function.

> Well that's bad enough, but now when he sends email from his AT&T Account
> it shows a different name as the sender and a reply to address that I don't
> recognize.
>
> I always make sure I reply using his @att.net email address, and he seems
> to get those without any difficulty, but I've always wondered what others
> get. (Every time I try to mention it he says "well its good enough").
>
> But just to see I went a head and sent him an email from another account of
> mine, a "gmail Business account" to the Reply to address so that I could
> see if he actually gets it including a requested read receipt .
>
> When I sent the message from my business account, I got the below message
> (identically to the one I sent) in my regular Gmail account. Granted it had
> the pd3830 label on it, making me think it was actually sent to that
> account (i have my Gmail set to important those messages via POP) but when
> I log into the pd3830 gmail web interface this message is not show in in
> the INBOX while all of the others I have received in my gmail are.
>
> I'm not even sure what is going on here. If the Reply-to message included
> is somehow forwarding to the original email address that message was sent
> to, or what's going on. I'm so lost I'm not even sure what to google for. I
> tried specifically looking for the name and the reply-to address on his
> email to me to see if someone had had this exact problem without much luck
> in my search.

It may be an intercept or there's a forwarding rule set somewhere.
Account hack?

> Any insight anyone can give as to why this would happen, what is happenign,
> or what the solution is (right now I'm leanign towards installing DSL or
> Wary Puppy on his old machine and setting up their email client to check
> his AT&T mail, but weitehr I can convience him to try such is debatable,
> and I'm not sure that would even fix it, if its a problem with the AT&T
> server. (When he has called AT&T  about other email problems (like the fact
> that previously it was added a signature to "Please send your email and
> password to address something at something.com" they just told him that
> Windows 98 is no longer supporter and go pleasure one's self).
>

Where is your friend located?  How old is "old"?  I've run Xubuntu on
a K6/2-500 and it was usable.  Mountains of 1GHz P4 systems are piling
up in recycling centers.