At 05:42 AM 2002-10-26 -0700, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote:
It is never right to send any autoresponse regarding the message delivery status to anything other than the RFC821 sender (or the contents of the Sender: header, which should be specified if the RFC821 sender does not match the From: line). No doubt this is heresy, but, for example, vacation responses should always go to the sender and not to any of the other entities mentioned in the RFC822 headers. The only time that the RFC822 headers should be used for generating responses is when there is human interaction. This is especially true for responses generated by MTAs.On Sat, 26 Oct 2002, Nick Simicich wrote:> >Then why send filter-bounces at all? Why can't the filtering or > >user-initiated blocking happen quietly? > > If it were a privately composed piece of mail that you sent to someone, you > might well want to know whether or not it actually got through. It is right > to return a bounce. I think the question is whether this should be considered a bounce (and so go to the envelope sender) or be considered an autoresponse (and so go to the header reply-to or header from).
RFC822 4.4.4 attempts to discuss this, and, to some extent, my feeling is that Return-Path has supplanted sender for this usage, and when looking at how smtp mail is delivered, the RFC821 MAIL FROM: header is moved into the sender (or Return-Path) when the mail is "gatewayed" from a RFC821 context to an RFC822 context, that is, when it is delivered. At the very least, any notification of the status of the message should be sent to the sender/Mail From: header and only responses to the message should use the RFC822 From: or Reply-to: headers.
This is clearly a notification of non-delivery, and not a response.
Again, I have no idea where you got the idea that autoresponders that are reporting delivery status should send to anything other than the RFC821 header or, as some MTA/MUA combinations (depending on which side of the line you put a delivery agent) the Return-Path: header. If they never did anything other than that, then vacation programs, for example, would never bother anyone other than the list (they would never bother people who composed mail and sent it to the list).> The real issue is whether it is right to bounce mailing > list mail. As you say below, it is very hard to distinguish. I have a rant about what autoresponders should and shouldn't do. But it isn't clear that this is should be an autoresponder.
For most cases, the addresses in the RFC821 and 822 headers should be the same. For those cases where they are not, such as mailing list mail, I can't think of one where it is not right to use the 821 headers.
--> The more I consider this, the more I feel that it is not right for AOL to > filter this mail at all based on the fact that the user instructed AOL to > block mail from an individual, but then mail came from a mailing list was > blocked instead. I think that this is a bug and someone who cares and who > has an AOL account should report this. I'm coming to agree with you (and am revising my initial stance based on what you and others have written). This really is an automated user end mail filtering. It shouldn't really be generating bounces. -j -- Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/ Relativism is the triumph of authority over truth, convention over justice
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