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 ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!XX.LCS.MIT.EDU!SRA From: SRA@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Rob Austein) Newsgroups: mod.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: SMTP, 2600, and the security of mail Message-ID: Date: Wed, 1-Oct-86 16:00:00 EDT Article-I.D.: XX.SRA.12243391985.BABYL Posted: Wed Oct 1 16:00:00 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 3-Oct-86 07:24:41 EDT References: Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 22 Approved: tcp-ip@sri-nic.arpa Date: Tuesday, 30 September 1986 13:29-EDT From: The lost Bostonian To: header-people@mc.lcs.mit.edu, tcp-ip@sri-nic.arpa If it is true that all IP implementations enable a server program to determine the IP address of its peer, then the HELO command, and its response could be eliminated, which would save us a few bytes. You are assuming that it is always possible to translate addresses to names and vice versa. Unfortunately, there are some people out in the world running domain nameservers who are totally clueless about what they are doing, and there are others who have the misfortune to be stuck behind a losing gateway or otherwise be unreachable much of the time. Do you really want to make it impossible to receive mail from some host because a third party is broken? Or have to put numeric addresses into the Recieved headers? The answer is to fix the silly net, not throw away features to save two IP packets. --Rob