Margulies@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA ("Benson I. Margulies") (03/06/84)
I want to make a plea for some of the big mailing list servers to start putting themselves in as the return path, instead of the person who submitted the transaction to the list. I am tired of the volume (and I mean VOLUME) of failed mail notification that I get every time I send to this (and several other) lists. What is needed is for the home system of HEADER-PEOPLE or whatever to make header-people-request the target of the return path, instead of me. Further, if the SMTP server involved implements EXPN, then it should NOT expand header people.
dpk@brl-vgr.ARPA (Doug Kingston) (03/07/84)
I've said this before, but some seemed to have missed it...
In the MMDF II software, I have implemented something called
the "list channel" which is in fact a "remailing" mechanism which
will substitute an alternate return address for original (sender's)
address. All the lists handled through BRL hosts are sent through
the list channel. As a result, senders to Unix-Wizards, Info-Micro,
Info-Cpm, etc. get much less return mail when they submit a message.
The list channel inserts Unix-Wizards-Request, and generally *-request
as the return address in the MAIL FROM command if that is a valid
address on the BRL host. As a result, the failed mail messages go
to someone who can actually do something about it, the list manager.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to totally eliminate this
return trash since some mailers will blindly except the mail and
reject it later after throwing away the MAIL FROM address. They still
take the return address from the letter. There is nothing we can do
to stop this unless we start munging the message, which we are unwilling
to do in this case.
Stop promiscuous hosts!
-Doug-
PS. Then there the hosts that return mail unmodified under separate
cover... Arrrgggg....