CWM Mail Processor
- last updated:
5 April 2000
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The Company WebMaster (CWM) Mail Processor was designed to support one of the founding principles of www.USNA63.org: promoting communications among the Class and its kindred souls. The CWM program was launched to augment the Class Secretary efforts to keep track of us, keep us connected, and enable us to reconnect. Having those efforts coordinated by a companymate are able to be more personal than Mike Shelley's audience of over eight hundred of us. There needed to be ways to compile and maintain company mailing lists without any extraordinary technical skills and without vulnerability to compromise of any data considered private within the Class.
The design goal for the processor was to simplify rapid publication of e-mail while preventing vandalism or mischief with mailing lists. The former is accomplished by using extremely simple, hopefully intuitive, addressing and the latter by revealing e-mail addresses to only authenticated personnel. No addresses are ever published such that they could be harvested by a spammer, nor can any mailing occur to a company list by anyone other than the CWM, or the USNA63.org administrators.
It gives any USNA63.org kindred soul access to each USNA Class of 1963 Company Mailing List. It gives each Classmate the confidence that disclosure of their e-mail address will be kept confidential. It is available around-the-clock so that it can be used at will. It is flexible enough so that it can be improved as it matures.
Throughout this discussion a convention is used for addresses. The characters "??" (without quotes) are used to signify a two digit company number 01-24. The discussion is subdivided into sections for everyone and for Company WebMasters (CWM). A special subdomain (excuse the Internet French) has been assigned for CWM related activities. The CWM mail processor is activated by sending mail to address@wm.USNA63.org (as opposed to address@USNA63.org). If the "wm" (without quotes) isn't specified, the CWM mail processor is inert.
Two generic addresses have been created to communicate with the CWM: they are equivalent and case insensitive, Wm??@wm.USNA63.org and Co??@wm.USNA63.org. Both were assigned because some may prefer to use Wm (wm, wM, or WM) for the CWM while others may prefer to use Co (co, cO, or CO) to signify the company. In both cases the inbound mail is simply forwarded to the CWM who will take the appropriate action. This is how kindred souls communicate with companies. The Wm?? and Co?? addresses may be used by anyone anywhere without restriction.
The Wm??@wm.USNA63.org address is linked to the guidon on the home page of each company for whom there is a CWM volunteer.
The other addresses in the CWM mail processor are restricted. They may be used by authenticated CWMs and the USNA63.org administrative staff. While it is theoretically possible to defeat the authentication technique used to enforce these restrictions, it requires more technical savvy than may be possessed by this audience. The other addresses were designed for simplicity and intuitive recall. To accommodate a lapse in the latter, a help document is available by sending e-mail to help@wm.USNA63.org. (sending the message to that address will trigger the help-text response, regardless of what you put in the Subject or Body). Anyone, anywhere may request the help document without restriction.
The CWM needs to perform three functions
to keep e-mail flowing. They must
1) Send mail to their
companies;
2) Be able to review
their address lists;
Accordingly, two addresses have been implemented: Mail??, and Show??. Those addresses are never displayed in outbound messages that could be put through "harvesters" used by spammers. They are used only in point-to-point communications between the CWM and the mail processor. The mail processor authenticates the sender by seeing if the address of origin is one in the list of "OK" addresses. That list is *NEVER* disclosed. If the sender address authenticates, the event proceeds.
The Mail??@wm.USNA63.org address is self evident. The CWM simply replaces ?? with the two digit company number and the mail dispatches to each address on the mailing list.
The Show??@wm.USNA63.org address is also self evident. The CWM will be promptly mailed a copy of the current company mailing list.
The CWM is free to use the commands as he
chooses. The Postmaster (Bill Kennedy, Postmaster@USNA63.org)
has some suggestions. The CWM mail processor is an intentionally
dull student. To keep the technical bar acceptably low, it can't
be very creative or have a sense of adventure.
Here is a fictional example of a reply to
Show99@wm.USNA63.org:
Any questions beyond this? -
send them to Postmaster@USNA63.org
#BEGIN Co 99
# updated by Wm99@wm.USNA63.org on Fri Feb 25 16:12:52 CST 2000
#
joe.blow@some.net
(Joe Blow)
jdoe@aol.com
(John Doe)
#
#END Co 99
What
if I can't remember all this?
Then just remember, you can always receive
an e-mail with a summary of these instructions by sending your own e-mail
to: Help@wm.USNA63.org - this will remind you of the
functions, and their implied use:
Show
me the list (of my company addresses)
Mail
to the list (of my company addresses)
See also: Site Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
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