Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!yunexus!davecb From: davecb@yunexus.YorkU.CA (David Collier-Brown) Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers Subject: Re: Unreplyable addresses not considered illegal enough? Message-ID: <21857@yunexus.YorkU.CA> Date: 11 Mar 91 00:52:47 GMT References: Organization: York U. Computing Services Lines: 27 bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes: | I think that most mail users and administrators would agree that | unreplyable From: or Reply-To: lines are Wrong. Why is there no | stronger and more specific prohibition? kre@cs.mu.OZ.AU (Robert Elz) writes: | to rreturn it. Even if the recipient can't just "reply", he may know | a working return address, it would seem better to deliver the mail than | just drop it on the floor, mandating validation of the From: would | make this illegal. I think we'd best be carefull to make the punishment match the crime here! The mail router I use often flags unreplyable from addresses and sends warning messages to the sender, in cases where it can detect a syntactic or semantic error. This helps a lot, since the single most common complaint I recieve as postmaster is one of the form "why did you send me that error message? I typed ``reply'' so I know the address is right." It does **not** refuse to deliver the message. --dave -- David Collier-Brown, | davecb@Nexus.YorkU.CA | lethe!dave 72 Abitibi Ave., | Willowdale, Ontario, | Even cannibals don't usually eat their CANADA. 416-223-8968 | friends.