Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!MorningStar.Com!bob
From: bob@MorningStar.Com
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: mail servers
Message-ID: <9008242052.AA01223@volitans.MorningStar.Com>
Date: 25 Aug 90 02:14:19 GMT
References: <9008230749.AA03983@Sceard.COM>
Sender: daemon@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
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   Date: 23 Aug 90 07:49:00 PDT (Thu)
   From: hplabs!mrm%Sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy)

(Your From: line is confused!  I hope your .signature was right...)

   What do you say to a direct connect (say via dialup UUCP) to a site
   with a mail to ftp converter?

No problem, so long as the converter recognizes its direct
connections, or at least has enough smarts to discriminate between
zero- and nonzero-incremental cost networks in order to refuse
non-directly connected folks' mailed requests.  Those smarts are
tough, because domainists have worked hard to obscure the differences
for mail users.  And in the case of remote nonzero-incremental-cost
connections, there's no closed-form way for the converter to find out
whether the requestor is paying for the connection.

So your case of accepting only direct-connect requests is probably
safe, but presents somewhat more of an administrative load on the
maintainer of the converter site.

Then there's the policy question:  Is FTP activity in automatic
response to a mail request from a non-Internet-connected site
permissible traffic on this particular Internet tributary, or the
[inter]national backbones?  One answer might be "no, because if they
were authorized to make independent use of the Internet they'd have
their own connection."  Does anyone really want to ask?