[51368] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: IETF SMTP Working Group Proposal at smtpng.org
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Martin Cooper)
Mon Aug 26 10:27:35 2002
From: Martin Cooper <mjc@cooper.org.uk>
To: Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 15:26:58 +0100
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> writes:
> At 11:40 AM +0100 2002/08/23, Martin Cooper wrote:
>
> > How does it break mailing-lists? If the list sets the envelope sender
> > to <list-request@listserv.domain.com> creating a MAIL-FROM shouldn't
> > be a problem.
>
> You may be surprised to discover this, but most mailing lists are
> not proper mailing lists and are not managed with proper mailing list
> management software. Most mailing lists are actually handled as
> aliases, and therefore do not modify the envelope sender address.
>
> > The only problem I can see is what to do about bounces
> > (i.e. with a null envelope sender) - guess you could use header From
> > instead maybe.
>
> Actually, this is one area that the paper addresses.
repudiated(mailfrom, ipsource) = {
(lhs, rhs) = parse_addr(mailfrom);
// handle "MAIL FROM:<>" somehow
mxset = get_mx("MAIL-FROM" "." rhs);
if (mxset == NULL)
return nonrepudiated;
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
OK - but unconditionally permitting null-return paths means that
spammers can drive a coach and horses through the hole it leaves. :-(
Martin
