Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!sceard!mrm From: mrm@sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: Domains vs. Routing (was Re: rewriting FROM: lines) Message-ID: <894@sceard.COM> Date: 3 Jun 89 16:32:26 GMT References: <31051@sri-unix.SRI.COM> <160@zebra.UUCP> <6982@cbnews.ATT.COM> <882@adobe.UUCP> <7050@cbnews.ATT.COM> Reply-To: mrm@Sceard.COM (0040-M.R.Murphy) Organization: Sceard Systems, Inc. San Marcos, CA 92069 Lines: 37 In article <7050@cbnews.ATT.COM> mark@cbnews.ATT.COM (Mark Horton) writes: [much stuff deleted so that I can ask a question about what's bugging me...] >Most of the time, you can just reply using the From: line and get >the right result. Every once in awhile something is broken in the >header you get, and you get a broken From: line and have to reply >using the From_ line. For example, mail through sun (and some other >places) arrives looking like > From: sun!dasnet!user >and since I'm not directly connected to sun, the reply bounces. >(Some sites smart-host to figure out who sun is, our software doesn't.) > Ours does figure out who sun is, but that's not my problem. That's a relatively well-formed rewrite. Not meaning to pick on sun specifically, I continue, why rewrite the From: anyhow? In all this thread I haven't seen any reason for rewrite of From:. I now reason by analogy, which may be specious, but why not. Suppose I address a postal card. And, somewhere on the card, I put From: Mike Murphy 544 South Pacific Street San Marcos, CA 92069 USA and I send it to somebody in East Nowhere. Not picking on East specifically:-) The Postal Authorities may change the To address or the route or whatever, so long as they deliver it to the addressee, I'm satisfied. They do that here with a neat little yellow sticker where the ink smears. They may want to pencil in a suggestion that my From: return address stinks and the addressee may want to try another route. They would normally do that when said addressee tries to respond and they return to sender (read as bounce) the mail. Then the responder can try again if they want to spend another stamp. But, and this is finally the point, I think that it borders on rude for them to mung my From: address just because they happen to have a marking pen. Even more so when they fix it real good so the responder can't respond, eh? --- Mike Murphy Sceard Systems, Inc. 544 South Pacific St. San Marcos, CA 92069 mrm@Sceard.COM {hp-sdd,nosc,ucsd,uunet}!sceard!mrm +1 619 471 0655