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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!hou3c!Gds@MIT-XX.ARPA
From: Gds@MIT-XX.ARPA (Greg Skinner)
Newsgroups: net.mail.headers
Subject: Re:  user-editable mail headers
Message-ID: <801@hou3c.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 25-Aug-84 07:04:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: hou3c.801
Posted: Sat Aug 25 07:04:02 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 29-Aug-84 01:20:42 EDT
Sender: ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist)
Lines: 42
To: header-people@MIT-MC.ARPA
In-Reply-To: Message from "ihnp4!hou3c!ka@mit-eddie (Kenneth Almquist)" of Thu 23 Aug 84 19:33:05-EDT


    From: ihnp4!hou3c!ka@mit-eddie (Kenneth Almquist)

    	I often use my nickname (gregbo) in the From: field and use my real
    	name in the Sender: field.  It's not to be fraudulent, just to have a
    	little fun.

    What you may not realize is that you are having fun in a way that
    violates RFC 822.  (I sometimes wonder whether anyone in Arpaland
    has ever read that document.)  RFC 822 requires that all addresses
    contain at signs, as your mail program should know but apparently
    doesn't.  Therefore, when your letter arrived here, I had to manually
    edit the header to replace
    	From: Grebo
    with
    	From: GDS@MIT-XX.ARPA
    So nobody on the USENET side of the gateway got to see your little
    joke.
    				Kenneth Almquist


People on the more civilized side of ucbvax do read RFC 822.
I have read it also.
All you had to do was delete the From: line and take what was in the
Sender: line and manually replace it.
Since there is an authenticated Sender: field generated whenever a
From: field is munged, the message still stays within legality of
RFC822. 
The only problem is readnews' and its brothers' inabilities to read
Arpanet mail.  Simple fix to readnews -- just have the Sender: field
examined if the From: field is unparseable.
One more thing, in case you didn't know, I work at Bell Labs also, so
I have the experience of both ARPA and Usenet message composition.
Don't blame the user, blame the standards' (RFC850 and RFC822)
different interpretation of From:

Greg Skinner (I do read RFCs!)
Gds@MIT-XX.ARPA
ihnp4!houxm!gregbo (UUCP)

p.s. perhaps mit-vax is at fault also!
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