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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!husc6!bu-cs!halleys!ulowell!page
From: page@ulowell.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re: My gawd...
Message-ID: <1076@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu>
Date: Fri, 20-Feb-87 13:28:02 EST
Article-I.D.: ulowell.1076
Posted: Fri Feb 20 13:28:02 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Feb-87 07:47:59 EST
References: <1061@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu> <394@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk>
Reply-To: page@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu (Bob Page)
Distribution: world
Organization: University of Lowell
Lines: 76

jim@cs.strath.ac.uk wrote in article <394@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk>:
>page@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) writes:
>>I say screw the sites that can't comply; this is the fastest way
>>to get them to shape up.

>fancy putting sendmail or MMDF up on a XENIX box with a 20 Mbyte disk? :-)

You don't need MMDF or sendmail, smail will do it.

>If [somewhere like siesmo] started being much more fussy about mail
>addresses

Did I suggest that?  The mailers should be as *robust* as possible,
and handle every garbage address sent to it, but *don't* *ever* change
the headers.  As it happens now, some mailers mung headers and some
don't, so many addresses are unusable anyway, regardless of what some
good-intentioned sites do.  Just because rutgers (for example) is being
nice and putting its name on everything doesn't mean that some mailer
betwen there and the destination isn't going to mess it up, or that
the mailer at the end of the line will be able to respond to the
getting-more-complex-every-hop address.

>The choice: stick rigidly to the protocols and watch megabytes of mail
>bounce or break the spec. and keep the mail flowing. If you were a backbone
>administrator, what would you do? (Especially if you have to pay the cost
>of returning failed mail.)

Addresses that don't conform get sent along where possible, but *my site*
doesn't mung headers.  If a mailer downstream breaks because it's not
robust enough, it breaks. If the recipient can't reply because the
address is unusable, what can I do about that?  What should I do?  I
didn't change the headers, I just forwarded it.

>violating RFC822 at the likes of seismo and csnet-relay for some mail must
>reduce the workload on the admins. there. This can be no bad thing.

This is no justification.  Hiding the problem only prolongs it.  Why
have RFC822 when nobody is following it?

>Without a centrally-directed and funded network administration, it's
>unlikely that USENET could make progress in this area.

Again, I disagree with you, and point out that to hint about having
such a beast is A Bad Thing.  The last thing that should happen is that
you have to pay a fee to *join* Usenet ... just so that some central
authority can 'direct' you!

>The backbone admins already have enough to do without policing RFC822
>conformance in every piece of mail that they get. Are you volunteering
>to do this?

I did not suggest that anyone bounce mail.  How about a daemon that
sits someplace in the ever-growing mailer chain, scanning headers?
If it sees one that is not compliant, it flags it and takes action?
The action could be a number of things, anywhere from the MMDF
"parse error" warning that it imbeds in the message header, to
sending mail to the postmaster of the offending system, saying "look
at this, it is bogus" (think of all the mail some sites would get!),
to something as radical as moving the offending line and writing a
new one, like:
	From: (mumble)
		becomes
	X-Bogus-From: (mumble) rewritten at myvax.EDU
	From: (good mumble address)

I DO NOT suggest the latter, only that is is possible.  Site admins
could pick their algorithm, if more than one were supplied, based on
their individual requirements.

Since I opened my big mouth about this, I will take on the task of
writing such a beast.  Volunteers to help (preferably versed in RFC822)
are welcome.

..Bob
-- 
Bob Page,  U of Lowell CS Dept.      ulowell!page,  page@ulowell.CSNET