jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (09/09/85)
A few weeks ago, when I suggested that it was a bad thing to rewrite "From"
lines, I got a lot of "flames" mailed to me from people who disagreed, asking
what justification I had for the position. At the time I didn't have any,
since I'd long since deleted the examples of bad rewriting, but following
is a very good example of why I feel From: lines should always be left
alone. The following is a header to a message I sent to a mailing list
which I am a member of; naturally, it got echoed back to me. Interestingly,
it says I am located at "topaz", not at "jerpc.PE.UUCP", which was what
the "From:" line originally said when the message was sent out. Note that
at the top of the header is a second From: line, generated by our rmail
from the UUCP routing information; fortunately, it managed to regenerate the
originating sitename more or less correctly, eventhough some mailer along
the way deleted the domain part of the site name from "jerpc". Here's
the header, anyway... see if you would know who to reply to (especially
disregarding the X-UUCP-Sent, Return-Path, and first From: line, which
normal mailers out there would not have produced):
---- Forwarded Message Follows
From: jer@jerpc
Return-Path: petsd!topaz!harvard!mit-eddie!harvard!topaz!petsd!peora!jerpc!jer
Received: by peora.UUCP (4.1.1.20 Class III/DNS);
ID AF83701; 9 Sep 1985 08:01:22 EDT (Mon)
X-UUCP-Sent: uucp Mon Sep 9 07:55:35 1985 remote from petsd
X-UUCP-Sent: harvard!mit-eddie!harvard!topaz!petsd!peora!jerpc!jer Mon Sep 9 05:12:52 1985 remote from topaz
Received: from harvard.ARPA (harvard.harvard.edu) by topaz.rutgers.edu; Mon, 9 Sep 85 05:12:52 edt
Received: from mit-eddie by harvard.ARPA with UUCP; Mon, 9 Sep 85 05:14:16 EDT
Received: from harvard.ARPA (900000a) by mit-eddie.MIT.EDU (4.12/4.8) id AA07136; Mon, 9 Sep 85 02:16:48 edt
Received: from topaz by harvard.ARPA with UUCP; Mon, 9 Sep 85 02:20:22 EDT
Received: by topaz.rutgers.edu; Mon, 9 Sep 85 02:05:21 edt
Date: Mon, 9 Sep 85 02:05:21 edt
Message-Id: <8509090605.AA07181@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Received: by peora.UUCP (4.1.1.20 Class III/DNS);
ID AF8619; 8 Sep 1985 22:14:52 EDT (Sun)
To: mit-eddie!love-hounds
From: topaz!harvard!mit-eddie!harvard!jerpc.PE!topaz!jer (Eric Roskos @ Home)
Subject: What's this song about, anyhow?
... message follows ...
---- End of Forwarded Message
The actual return path should have been
...!mit-eddie!harvard!topaz!petsd!peora!jerpc.PE.UUCP!jer
assuming it was correctly generated from the path the message took.
--
Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos
UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer
US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC;
2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642