Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site plus5.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!mgnetp!we53!busch!wucs!wuphys!plus5!hokey From: hokey@plus5.UUCP (Hokey) Newsgroups: net.mail Subject: Re: More thoughts on mail relays Message-ID: <915@plus5.UUCP> Date: Wed, 6-Nov-85 11:40:48 EST Article-I.D.: plus5.915 Posted: Wed Nov 6 11:40:48 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 10-Nov-85 06:42:58 EST References: <1813@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1746@peora.UUCP> <909@plus5.UUCP> <1761@peora.UUCP> <912@plus5.UUCP> <1772@peora.UUCP> Reply-To: hokey@plus5.UUCP (Hokey) Organization: Plus Five Computer Services, St. Louis, MO Lines: 57 Well, you may be in luck. I am going out of town for a week, so I probably won't see your followup! >> Me: >> Are you saying that there are only a few sites running sendmail? Are you >> inviting them to identify themselves in order to substantiate their number? > > JER: >Only if you let all the non-sendmail sites do so too... :-) it's a matter of >proportion, not numbers. Did you mean to put the :-) at the end of the sentence? If not, we should all begin using Chinese because it will "normalize" communications. After all, it is a matter of proportion, not numbers. >> Contrived example: wucs!kurt sends me mail via seismo. Seismo puts the >> thing into 822 format before sending it to me. I see wucs!kurt@seismo. > >Seismo did it wrong! (Now, don't get mad, Seismo-folks, I didn't say you'd >really do it this way...) They should have written kurt@wucs.UUCP. It's >the responsibility of the nameservers on the path back to figure out how >to get it to wucs. The fact that it came through Seismo coming here is of >no interest at all; besides, you can look in the Received: lines if you >want to know. The From: line should tell the mailbox name and the system >the message came from; that's all you know to reply, and all you need to >know. I never said *where* the route/address was! Seismo may have done a perfectly legal thing and put a domain name (seismo) on a localpart (wucs!kurt). This could happen in the To: line, which would be used in a reply. Let's say I have a dumb mailer, but seismo doesn't know it. This is one of the points I have been making which you don't seem to see. Furthermore, If I have a dumb mailer, I *couldn't even reply* to "kurt@wucs.UUCP"! This is another of the points I make which you don't seem to see. The fact that it came through seismo is *very* significant if I have a dumb mailer and I want to send something back without editing headers! >> Since RFC822 compliance can't be enforced on arbitrary UUCP sites, we have to >> have a way to transport mail between sites. The *only* thing I am advocating >> is the use of strict bang format when shuffling mail between UUCP sites. > >Me too! But here again, standard UUCP mail doesn't know anything about >anything in the message text except for "From_" lines. Still wrong! How many times must you be told about the To: line, which is also used by binmail to handle multiple recipients? If this line is a "simple" @ address, dumb mailers can't reply. If it is a hybrid, dumb mailers will mess up the wucs!kurt@seismo example I gave above. My primary goal is to have a reliable, verifyable mail transport system. If we use strict ! format *within UUCP land* we *will not* have the transport problems we have now. Furthermore, it will be *easy* to identify sites which do not conform to this scheme, making it even easier to track down sites which can be potential troublemakers. -- Hokey ..ihnp4!plus5!hokey 314-725-9492