Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utcs.toronto.edu!cks
Newsgroups: news.software.b
From: cks@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu (Chris Siebenmann)
Subject: Re: Moving news thru waffle node, with out decompression
Message-ID: <1991Jan22.173722.5159@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Summary: don't use the Path: address for replies
Organization: Ziebmef home away from home
References: <4f340ead.1bc5b@pisa.ifs.umich.edu> <kVoZV2w164w@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us>
Date: 22 Jan 91 22:37:22 GMT
Lines: 25

mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) writes:
...
| Also, like it or not, there *is* software out there that uses the
| Path: mudos!header to send the reply.  Yes, they're using broken software --
| but are YOU going to be the one to explain to your users why their
| inbound mail isn't getting to them?

 Mail replies done using Path: are already broken; they occasionally
get through only out of luck and a fair bit of work by postmasters
between hither and yon. The best thing to do is to put them out of
their misery as fast as possible, so people will stop being fooled.

 People who disbelieve me should feel to ask any postmaster of a major
news machine or gateway machine. I'm the postmaster of our local
BITNET/NETNORTH<->Internet gateway, and we've recently had a spate of
messages bouncing off us because the huge To: address derived from a
Path: line was mangled by a previous mailer, probably because it
overflowed a fixed-sized buffer somewhere; this is merely one example
of what can happen to such messages.

--
"Anyone forging articles should be writing news software instead,
 if you get the headers right you're ahead of some implementations.
 Try writing a gateway, that'll test your skills."	- Ed Vielmetti
cks@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu	           ...!{utgpu,utzoo,watmath}!utgpu!cks