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Re: sendmail : reply-to : why do you need it ?
On Thu, 29 Jan 1998, Boris D. Beletsky wrote:
> Harvey, you wrote:
> >
> > "Peter L. Peres" <plp@actcom.co.il> writes:
> >
> > > Off topic: Why on earth do you need the Reply-To: field is From:
> > > is specified ?! The only reason to use this, is when someone
> > > sends mail as guest from another account and wants the answers at
> > > home. Setting both fields the same might confuse some mailer or
> > > filter, causing duplicate messages or such.
> >
> > Such a mailer or filter is broken.
> >
> > > Is there something I have missed ?
> >
> > Yes. So that the message can, for example, be from a mailing list
> > for which replies go back to the author, not to the mailing list.
>
> Or vice versa, some people instead of crying "PLEASE DO NOT CC
> ME...." can just set there Reply-To to point to the mailling list.
Unlike you, who CCd this message to all the people who have started it,
AND to the list ;) (but so did I)
Off topic: The sendmail docs (and some RFC) specify that the Errors-To:
field is deprecated. That is the only sane field in a mail header apart
from the From: and To: fields. It would have solved several problems on
this list if it would have been used consistently.
The Errors-To could be used for non-spam certification of email. If
everyone could set his Errors-To, and spam could too (would have to), then
there would be a valid return address for spam complaints. The list daemon
could check that the spam's errors-to address exists and is reachable (it
does useless DNS lookups anyway), and refuse to diffuse the message if
not.
Sysadmins who do not want spam to go out from their own domains, would set
their mailers to add the field to messages coming from thir MX if missing.
It would point to a dummy user, used to collect bad mail and spam
complaints. Good idea ?
imho, this would filter out the hosts allowing spam sending very fast if
adopted, and would allow filtering to become very effective.
Is there an alt.comp.anti-spam ? Couldn't find one.
Peter