Re: why?

[Daniel Martin at cush <dtm12@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>]

George Bonser <grep@oriole.sbay.org> writes:

> To: Friend@public.com
> 
> Why would any list accept an email message with the above in the To:
> header?

Your question could be asking one of two different things:
1) Why would the list accept mail with an "obviously bogus" To:
header?
2) Why would the list accept mail that doesn't have the list address
in the To: or Cc: header fields?

The answer to 1) is that the list software can't tell what addresses
are "obviously fake" - just because an email address isn't valid by
the time it reaches the listserv doesn't mean it's a fake.  (As an
example, suppose I have an internal network with a mail gateway.  I
send something to someone else on the internal network and Cc: it to
the list.  The To: header ends up looking like "To: archambj@cush",
which is a valid mail address only internally.  The listserv couldn't
tell the difference betweeen this and an "obviously fake" address.)

The answer to 2) is that the listserv does this right now because it's 
easier than checking all the header fields.  However, there's no
technical reason (other than that one might have to rewrite the
list-processing software again) for not doing this that I can see.  It 
would disallow people Bcc:'ing stuff to the list, but for an open list 
with publicly accessible archives, is this really a necessary feature?

> Also, someone in the US State of Maryland might want to consider donating
> a mail server for Debian. That email would have been grounds for criminal
> charges had the server been located in Maryland.


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