Re: [EAI] NFC/NFD (Re: Test - driven schedule (Re: Rechartering))

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Friday, July 24, 2009 10:59 +0200 Arnt Gulbrandsen
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> Alternative proposal: Extend VRFY to optionally return a
> fuzzily correctified version of an email address. If VRFY is
> disabled or doesn't return an address, correction isn't
> available for that address. I think this is better because it
> permits the fuzzy fuzziness to be invoked when the address is
> entered into e.g. an address database, instead of when a
> message is transmitted. As a bonus it's 99% independent of EAI.

First, as Tony points out, that has been part of VRFY forever
and, historically, systems used to fairly commonly generate real
addresses.  In particular, it was common in some systems for one
to be able to send
   VRFY John Klensin
and get an address back, and VRFY was designed to accommodate
that use when systems wanted to support it.

Second, what you are suggesting is a member of a family of
solutions we've discussed before.  Some of them would fall under
Harald's Global Universal Directory project, others don't, but
all are members of the set of "if downgrading of
forward-pointing addresses is needed, it needs to be done at the
originating MUA or Submission server and downgrading does not
need to be done in transit (at SMTP time).

    john