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From: guy@gorodish.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: withdrawing mails
Message-ID: <13594@sun.uucp>
Date: Wed, 18-Feb-87 20:30:21 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.13594
Posted: Wed Feb 18 20:30:21 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Feb-87 03:07:51 EST
References: <3126@osu-eddie.UUCP> <716@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: guy@sun.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 25

>How about  a modification in BSD4.x such that the files in 
>/usr/spool/mail/receiver can also be writable by sender.

Umm, err... no, thanks.  If the mailbox is writable by the sender,
what prevents me from doing

	cat /dev/null >/usr/spool/mail/receiver

or

	ed /usr/spool/mail/receiver

and changing some message I *didn't* send to something the sender
probably didn't want the receiver to think they sent?

>This is the point that US mail beat E-mail:
>
>One can alway withdraw a mail from one's own mailbox before
>mailman comes. This is usually one  night and one  morning
>( may be one long weekend ).

But (paper) mail you're sending to somebody else doesn't usually get
stuck in your own mailbox; it gets stuck in the mail system's
mailbox, and there are usually legal penalties attached to
withdrawing mail from them.