[17402] in Athena Bugs
nmh gratutious Sender: fields
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John "JCondor" Hawkinson)
Thu Dec 2 08:49:27 1999
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 08:49:21 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199912021349.IAA20762@x15-cruise-basselope.mit.edu>
To: bugs@mit.edu
From: John "JCondor" Hawkinson <jhawk@MIT.EDU>
This is minor and cosmetic.
Under 8.3.23 Solaris, I replied to a message with "repl" and in emacs
added the From line:
From: John "JCondor" Hawkinson <jhawk@MIT.EDU>
I was disturbed that my final message showed up as:
| To: "Matthew Schiller" <matt2002@MIT.EDU>
| From: John "JCondor" Hawkinson <jhawk@MIT.EDU>
| Cc: w1mx-officers@MIT.EDU
| Subject: Various MX/XM club business
| In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 02 Dec 1999 07:44:31 EST."
| <010601bf3cc3$000b67e0$a701f812@mit.edu>
| Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 08:32:48 -0500
| Sender: jhawk@MIT.EDU
i.e. a gratutious Sender: line there.
I don't think that an automatically inserted "Sender:" line is ever
appropriate, even when forging email. Most mail clients don't
put them in, especially not M-x mail in emacs (for example).
I suppose this is an aesthetic complaint, as I find the presence
of the field annoying when it is redundant information (like this
case), and detrimental when it is wrong information. (If I forge
a message, I do so with the authorization and approval of the party
for whom I forge it, and those replying should not have the message
associated with the account the mail was sent from unless I explicitly
wish such a thing; for instance, if I "borrow an xterm" and type "comp",
a Sender: field would be inappropriate. Practically speaking this
may not come up since I'm rarely ever send messages with "comp", but I
do send messages with "repl"...)
The Sender: field would be a bit more palatable contained a
display-name.
--jhawk
p.s. If anyone cares about references, draft-ietf-drums-msg-fmt-07.txt
which is the generally-acknowledged clarification of RFC822 on this
topic, has this to say in section 3.6.2:
| 3.6.2. Originator fields
|
| The originator fields of a message consist of the from field, the sender
| field (when applicable) and optionally the reply-to field. The from
| field consists of the field name "From" and a comma-separated list of
| one or more mailbox specifications. If the from field contains more than
| one mailbox specification in the mailbox-list, then the sender field,
| containing the field name "Sender" and a single mailbox specification,
| MUST appear in the message. In either case, an optional reply-to field
| may also be included, which contains the field name "Reply-To" and a
| comma-separated list of one or more addresses.
|
| from = "From:" mailbox-list CRLF
|
| sender = "Sender:" mailbox CRLF
|
| reply-to = "Reply-To:" address-list CRLF
|
| The originator fields indicate the mailbox(es) of the source of the
| message. The "From:" field specifies the author(s) of the message, that
| is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s) or system(s) responsible for the
| writing of the message. The "Sender:" field specifies the mailbox of the
| agent responsible for the actual transmission of the message. For
| example, if a secretary were to send a message for another person, the
| mailbox of the secretary would appear in the "Sender:" field and the
* | mailbox of the actual author would appear in the "From:" field. If the
* | originator of the message can be indicated by a single mailbox and the
* | author and transmitter are identical, the "From:" field SHOULD be used
* | and the "Sender:" field SHOULD NOT be used. Otherwise, both fields
* | SHOULD appear.
|
| The originator fields also provide the information required when
| replying to a message. When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it
| indicates the mailbox(es) to which the author of the message suggests
| that replies be sent. In the absence of the "Reply-To:" field, replies
| SHOULD be sent to the mailbox(es) specified in the "From:" field.
|
| In all cases, the "From:" field SHOULD NOT contain any mailbox that does
| not belong to the author(s) of the message. See also section 3.6.3 for
| more information on forming the destination addresses for a reply.
