| Author | Message | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2552 Registered: 2-2001 |
I don't mean to be starting a theme, or anything, but I received a kind of strange automated Out of OFfice* (OOF) message in my work email. The strangest part was that I hadn't sent a message to that email address, nor had one been sent from my account automatically. In addition, I already knew that person was OOF. So, why was an OOF sent to me? Early $poilers please email kthnxbai. *In case anyone is unfamiliar with this, at my workplace we use Exchange for email (mostly), and in the MS application we use it is possible to set up an automated response to let people know one is going to be out of the office and provide alternate contact information, so any time an email comes in a response is sent - typically just the first time for any given email address. | ||
| Doctapeppa (Doctapeppa)
New member Username: Doctapeppa Post Number: 1239 Registered: 12-2004 |
Did an albatross send an email on your account? Was it actually sent automatically? In response to an email? In response to an email sent from your account? In response to an email from a different account? In response to something else? Was the person from whom the email came a coworker? H? A? F? Alive? Elevators relevant? | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2554 Registered: 2-2001 |
Doctapeppa Posted on Monday, November 24, 2008 - 7:22 pm: Did an albatross send an email on your account? No. Was it actually sent automatically? Yes. In response to an email? Yes. In response to an email sent from your account? No. In response to an email from a different account? Yes. In response to something else? No. Was the person from whom the email came a coworker? No. H? A? F? Alive? Don't know. Elevators relevant? Not to the puzzle. | ||
| Doctapeppa (Doctapeppa)
New member Username: Doctapeppa Post Number: 1248 Registered: 12-2004 |
Was the automated email from a coworker? Is the letter "J" relevant? | ||
| Obvious (Obvious)
New member Username: Obvious Post Number: 8 Registered: 11-2008 |
any relevance to the fact that OF is capitalized in OFfice? Was it a forwarded message? Was it sent from your account? | ||
| Doctapeppa (Doctapeppa)
New member Username: Doctapeppa Post Number: 1250 Registered: 12-2004 |
I would guess this would be to indicate that OOF is an initialism for "out of office." Thank you, CPT. | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2555 Registered: 2-2001 |
Obvious Posted on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 - 1:09 am: any relevance to the fact that OF is capitalized in OFfice? No (see DPs message). Was it a forwarded message? The OOF? No. Was it sent from your account? The OOF? Yes. | ||
| Biograd (Biograd)
New member Username: Biograd Post Number: 279 Registered: 6-2008 |
I'm not sure I get this: you received a copy of your own OOF message? (You say it was you who received it, and it was also sent from your account) Are listservs relevant? If anyone on a listserv to which you are subscribed is OOF, and they haven't somehow set the program to ignore all list emails, then everyone on there is bound to be drowning in OOFs by the time they get back! | ||
| Vagary (Vagary)
New member Username: Vagary Post Number: 129 Registered: 11-2008 |
Did someone send the OOF person an e-mail, and you were Cc'd on the e-mail, so you got the OOF message, too? | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2556 Registered: 2-2001 |
Biograd Posted on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 - 5:33 am: I'm not sure I get this: you received a copy of your own OOF message? (You say it was you who received it, and it was also sent from your account) Correct. Are listservs relevant? No. If anyone on a listserv to which you are subscribed is OOF, and they haven't somehow set the program to ignore all list emails, then everyone on there is bound to be drowning in OOFs by the time they get back! ============================================================================ Vagary Posted on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 - 3:28 pm: Did someone send the OOF person an e-mail, and you were Cc'd on the e-mail, so you got the OOF message, too? No, the OOF was from me. | ||
| Doctapeppa (Doctapeppa)
New member Username: Doctapeppa Post Number: 1314 Registered: 12-2004 |
Did you email yourself? Did someone else send you an email on your account? (I know my mother has a habit of using my email address sometimes, and she'll send me an email from my own account) Was there a an email of human origin sent from your account to your account? | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2557 Registered: 2-2001 |
Doctapeppa Posted on Wednesday, November 26, 2008 - 10:41 pm: Did you email yourself? No. Did someone else send you an email on your account? No...(I know my mother has a habit of using my email address sometimes, and she'll send me an email from my own account) Was there a an email of human origin sent from your account to your account? No - the only email sent from my account to my account was the OOF. | ||
| Doctapeppa (Doctapeppa)
New member Username: Doctapeppa Post Number: 1353 Registered: 12-2004 |
Was there an email from another source sent to your account which resulted in your account mistaking the source for yourself and sent an email? Or perhaps you sent an email which resulted in an automated response which in turn resulted in another automated response which triggered the OOF? | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2558 Registered: 2-2001 |
Doctapeppa Posted on Thursday, November 27, 2008 - 1:24 am: Was there an email from another source sent to your account which resulted in your account mistaking the source for yourself and sent an email? Yope. Or perhaps you sent an email which resulted in an automated response which in turn resulted in another automated response which triggered the OOF? Not this. | ||
| Obvious (Obvious)
New member Username: Obvious Post Number: 86 Registered: 11-2008 |
Is there more than one email account involved here? Ie a secondary account that is also yours? | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2561 Registered: 2-2001 |
Is there more than one email account involved here? Yes. Ie a secondary account that is also yours? But no. | ||
| Doctapeppa (Doctapeppa)
New member Username: Doctapeppa Post Number: 1377 Registered: 12-2004 |
For clarification, was the email that triggered the OOF: Sent from your account? Sent from a different account? Sent to your account? Sent to a different account? | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2563 Registered: 2-2001 |
Doctapeppa Posted on Friday, November 28, 2008 - 10:41 pm: For clarification, was the email that triggered the OOF: Sent from your account? No. Sent from a different account? Yes. Sent to your account? Yes. Sent to a different account? In addition to mine? Don't know, would assume yes. At this point all the information is there, it's just a matter of making it all fit together...(: | ||
| Biograd (Biograd)
New member Username: Biograd Post Number: 289 Registered: 6-2008 |
Was the OOF also received by the sender of the message that triggered it? by a third party? only by you? | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2564 Registered: 2-2001 |
Biograd Posted on Tuesday, December 02, 2008 - 9:39 am: Was the OOF also received by the sender of the message that triggered it? No. by a third party? No. only by you? Yes. | ||
| Biograd (Biograd)
New member Username: Biograd Post Number: 298 Registered: 6-2008 |
So we have the OOF, sent from your account to itself, and another email that triggered the OOF, and was sent from another account. Are any other emails relevant? | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2571 Registered: 2-2001 |
Yay, a question! Biograd Posted on Saturday, December 13, 2008 - 2:33 am: So we have the OOF, sent from your account to itself, and another email that triggered the OOF, and was sent from another account. Are any other emails relevant? Nope, you've pretty much nailed it - just need to draw the logical conclusion. | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2574 Registered: 2-2001 |
Well, since this puzzle seems to have bogged down a bit (or a whopping great huge amount), I'll offer one o' them recap-thingies: ~~~~~~~~~~~~ RECAP ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Read Biograd's post above. Oh ok (sheesh): an email came into my work account which caused an automated Out-Of-oFfice (OOF) message to be sent to my email address from my email address, but the initial email was not sent from my account. C'mon, I know someone out there will know exactly what happened...please? | ||
| Doctapeppa (Doctapeppa)
New member Username: Doctapeppa Post Number: 1536 Registered: 12-2004 |
Is it relevant from where the initial email was sent? | ||
| Kaygee (Kaygee)
New member Username: Kaygee Post Number: 57 Registered: 9-2008 |
We use Exchange at my company, too. But our network guys would think I've lost my mind if I asked for their help on this one...so a couple of quick questions: Are there any OOF Rules set up on your account? Do you have an admin or assistant that has On Your Behalf access? Did someone quit or get terminated and their emails are forwarding to you? | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2577 Registered: 2-2001 |
Doctapeppa Posted on Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - 12:24 am: Is it relevant from where the initial email was sent? Er, yope (I don't actually know from whence it came, as I didn't even open it). ================================================================ Kaygee Posted on Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - 2:15 am: We use Exchange at my company, too. But our network guys would think I've lost my mind if I asked for their help on this one...so a couple of quick questions: Are there any OOF Rules set up on your account? I had turned the OOF on, yes. Do you have an admin or assistant that has On Your Behalf access? No. Did someone quit or get terminated and their emails are forwarding to you? No. | ||
| Doctapeppa (Doctapeppa)
New member Username: Doctapeppa Post Number: 1538 Registered: 12-2004 |
I think I've got it. OK, so there are these aliens who landed, right? So they've hijacked the Internet, and they are now controlling all computers connected to it. And they have like this logging camp thing in the middle of the woods, but they have it defended with an invisible force field. (They had to keep it small, because the energy costs of maintaining the force field is based on the cube of the volume protected by the force field, assuming it is a dome with no protection below the ground and with enough gaps that things smaller than a termite can pass through [with some slight effort].) Anyway, so they have like some n-dimensional communication method which happens to be able to use the same hardware that we now use for radio waves, etc., and, by passing through a wormhole or by going into zero-space, can allow faster-than-light transmission of video communications. Some of these aliens called up the Prime Minister of Florida and told him to lock down the prime minister's mansion because all of his base were belong to them. Around that time, an alien by the name of Viceroy Bodo sent an email to you. The email mutated itself in transit, and even though it was sent from the logging camp, when it arrived at your computer, the "FROM" address on the email had mutated to match your email address. This, in addition to the cyber-coup that had been executed, resulted in the proper 1's and 0's being fired off to instruct the computer to send an OOF message to the same account, which you then found. I can't believe it took me this long to realize it. | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2578 Registered: 2-2001 |
Doctapeppa Posted on Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - 10:08 pm: ...a bunch of stuff I won't repeat here, but... "...when it arrived at your computer, the "FROM" address on the email...match[ed] your email address..."This is correct. | ||
| Doctapeppa (Doctapeppa)
New member Username: Doctapeppa Post Number: 1546 Registered: 12-2004 |
OK, no aliens? But somehow a message that was not sent from you had your email address listed as the sender, and the OOF was sent in response to that email, but you don't know where that email came from? | ||
| Bodo (Bodo)
New member Username: Bodo Post Number: 2579 Registered: 2-2001 |
Doctapeppa Posted on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 - 12:09 am: OK, no aliens? The limit would be approaching zero, definitely. But somehow a message that was not sent from you had your email address listed as the sender, and the OOF was sent in response to that email, but you don't know where that email came from? Correct - I don't know specifically where it came from. I believe there's nothing left to get here, and this here puzzle has languished long enough, methinks, so time for a ***** SPOILER ***** I had set up an OOF message because I took some extra time off during the 2008 Thanksgiving holiday, but since I work from home most days I left my work computer hooked up to the company intranet. I went in to keep an eye on things (and to clear out emails - I get over 100 each day just from automated jobs) and noticed there was an email in my Inbox which listed myself in the From column. As I've encountered this type of spam before (it was most likely for some kind of pharmaceutical, or possibly a banking thing) I just deleted it, but I was amused to note that the receipt of the email had caused my OOF message to be sent back to myself. For those who haven't yet experienced this particular method of spamming, please take note - don't bother with notes from yourself unless you know you sent 'em. | ||
| Doctapeppa (Doctapeppa)
New member Username: Doctapeppa Post Number: 1550 Registered: 12-2004 |
Interesting. I've had quite a bit of SPAM before, but I haven't seen that kind of SPAM yet. Does it have a separate "reply to" email address? I would think that if you checked the metadata it would have to list some other source... |
