On 2003.08.27, russm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> That would break a lot of things, I reckon...

Yes!  SMTP is fundamentally broken, and that's why it's so easy to send
spam in a way that's hard to track down and easy to forge.  This is NOT
a feature -- being able to send forged email -- it is a FLAW in the SMTP
design.  What I suggested is a easily implementable fix to the design.

> When I'm at home all outbound mail is relayed through my providers mail
> servers, but they certainly don't provide backup MX for my employer -
> you'd see mail from mail.optusnet.net.au which is not in the MX list
> for icorp.com.au...

And why aren't you relaying mail through one of icorp.com.au's MX'es?
They won't allow your IP to relay through them?  Not even with something
like POP-before-SMTP auth or S/SMTP with SSL client certificate auth or
some other mechanism?

Novel idea: when you're at home, why not send mail from an email address
valid from your home machine through a mailhost that the address is
valid for, and use the Reply-To: header in the mail if you want
responses to go back to your work address?  Why do you need to forge the
outgoing From: address?  Do you need to hide the fact that you're
sending the email from home?

-- Dossy

--
Dossy Shiobara                       mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Panoptic Computer Network             web: http://www.panoptic.com/
  "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
    folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)


--
AOLserver - http://www.aolserver.com/

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