Re: header-munging

["D. J. Bernstein" <[e-mail]>]

> I've had 5 that got mangled into
> '[e-mail]' just because transport-server.whatever.the.heck
> didn't see fit to fully qualify its domain name....

This is just a minor variant of the situation that I already described:

:    Sender: joe ---> fast SMTP server ---> sendmail ---> Sender: [e-mail]
:    (at brl.mil)     (at brl.mil)          (at utk.edu)          (wrong!)
: 
: Everyone agrees that (1) the sender (Netscape, in this case) is
: producing an invalid message, and (2) sendmail, by trying to fix it, is
: making it even worse.
: 
: The situation changes completely when you replace the first SMTP link
: with the mail-injection protocol that we're discussing. Then Netscape
: isn't doing anything wrong. The server will fix up the Sender address.
: The SMTP violations disappear. Everybody's happy.

The only difference in your case is that the ``fast SMTP server'' is
replaced by ``slow, obsolete SMTP server that fills in an unqualified
domain name.'' The remaining comments apply.

> You tell me how the SMTP server at vtbit.cc.vt.edu can
> *reliably* tell what the domain name is,

Although this _sounds_ the same as Keith's frivolous objection, it's
actually a completely different objection.

Keith was talking about an injection server. You're talking about an
SMTP server.

Everyone agrees that a mailed message must conform to RFC 822. A client
has no business sending unqualified domain names to your SMTP server.
This, however, has no relevance to a mail-injection protocol.

---Dan