-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sanford Whiteman Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 4:35 PM To: Don Kiiskila Subject: Re[2]: [IMail Forum] Help with listing on ORDB.org !!!
> ...as far as the customer is concerned, I'll cross that bridge if I > ever come to it. How do you propose to "come to it" if you block non-delivery notifications, thus suppressing information from both sides (the sender and the intended recipient)? -------------------------------------------------------------------- As I also said, I don't block null sender at the server at work, only On my personal server. So in the end, I guess I wouldn't cross the bridge, now would I. --------------------------------------------------------------------- > I'm quite sure that a lot of people agree with my sentiment when I > say... It's a trite, condescending syllogism to accuse those who don't want to block null senders of being unwilling to "break the rules" and, by extension, of being unreasonable. Everybody knows that you do what you can. Unfortunately for your well-worn argument, blocking null senders is something you _cannot_ do if you claim to offer SMTP service. (I don't know what you call what you're "offering" to yourself on your personal account, but I'm glad you're not selling that service to anyone else.) --------------------------------------------------------------------- ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLRIGHTYTHEN! Where to begin to respond to this? Actually, SANFORD, my argument was more towards null sender return email addresses only, not envelope header mistakes. I'm not accusing anyone of being unreasonble ther than the idiots out there that spam the crap out of us all with inappropriate and malformed email. They're the unreasonable ones. --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Here's the other thing. I have the right to refuse mail outright by > checking RBL's, statistics filters, virus filters, content filters, > and I do. Why should null sender being a candidate for refusal be > any different? If you don't see the difference between envelope rejection of a legit message with a full reverse-path (where the reverse-path will receive the resultant notification, unless it's been erroneously turned off at some point in the transport chain) and envelope rejection of null senders (which means that the notification is silently dropped and nothing ever reaches either party), you'd better read up on SMTP. -------------------------------------------------------------------- You're reading too much into what I'm saying, Sandy. I'm basically talking about email address verification here, and making the point that refusal of email by RBL, Content, or address verification is allowed, but refusal of an email by merit of it not having a return address *AT ALL* isn't. ----------------------------------------------------------------- > The answer: "There is only one: error reporting." And even then, you > see that you at least get an identifier of postmaster or > mailer-daemon @ tld... Nonsense. If you're talking about a null sender with an "identifier," you're talking about RFC 822 header information. You're rejecting the message at the envelope, so this is utterly irrelevant. --------------------------------------------------------------- Maybe I should have made myself a little clearer when I wrote it. I was talking about email address being null being a qualifier for being outright rejected, but you decided to carefully dissect what I was saying and turn it into your own personal "I'm more knowledgeable than you" session. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > If you read section 4.1.1 of the RFC821 it states that in the > command semantics for SMTP there has to be a return path and mailbox > listed to which the server can respond with error conditions > (mailbox unavailable, etc). So really, if you think about it... Get a grip, my man. Do you think you've made a miraculous discovery about RFC 821? Do you not see where RFC 821 makes an EXPLICIT exception for null reverse-path in the case of error notifications? Do you want to go through this argument, 20+ years on? -------------------------------------------------------------------- Uhh, ok, whatever you say, boss. Your personal attack tone at this point has totally turned me off to whatever credibility you built up with your knowledge. Attitude is quite obvious here, and not appreciated. -------------------------------------------------------------------- > Even the Can-SPAM act has provisions about accurate return > addresses, so you could construe any commercial email going out with > a null address as being a violation of federal law, of which it is. > Do you know anyone use a null address for their personal usage? No. > Why? Well, so you know who the mail is from to provide a return > route. It's just plain common sense. It's common sense to assume that person-to-person e-mail never has a null sender. It's not common sense to block all null senders as a result. You are rapidly approaching the lunatic fringe of your side of this so-called "argument" by implying that allowing null senders is done to allow person-to-person(s) mail. > So, it's ok to block an email *with* an address based on the fact > that the return address is false, but it is *not* ok to block an > email *without* a return address. Does anyone else think this kind > of reasoning is stupid? It's not stupid, because the null reverse-path has a specific meaning that is outlined in several RFCs which you appear to not have read thoroughly. --Sandy -------------------------------------------------------------------- Here you finally focus on what *I* was more focused on, actual email addresses, and it almost reads like you agree with what I was saying. Unfortunately you seem to be so caught up in the whole "I'm smarter than you" kick that you missed my point. It matters *not* to me personally if a mail is person to person, commercial, or whatever, if it has no return address, I should be able to ignore/delete it at the server level for any reason. Period. You're getting into null sender a little deeper than I was touching on in my excessively worded reply earlier. The whole idea is that email should have a viable return address or be eligible for immediate refusal. It's not a difficult concept to understand, but you evidently are so caught up in how smart you are that you missed it. Considering myself properly chastised, Don To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
