On Mon, 13 Oct 2014 20:33:11 -0400 Miles Fidelman <mfidel...@meetinghouse.net> wrote:
> Jerry Stuckle wrote: > > On 10/13/2014 7:10 PM, lee wrote: > >> Brian <a...@cityscape.co.uk> writes: > >> > >>> The mail is accepted. What the recipient does with the mail after > >>> that is outside the scope of an RFC. There is no obligation on > >>> the recipient to inform the sender that he has ripped up the mail > >>> and junked it. > >> When the MTA delivers the mail it accepted correctly, then there > >> is no problem. What whoever receives the mail does with it is an > >> entirely different question. > >> > >> > > Incorrect. All the MTA does is receive the mail. It is then free > > to queue it up to the user, send it to a SPAM folder or delete it. > > None of these options is covered by the RFCs. > > > > Well, yes and no. Reporting "message accepted for delivery" as a > status code, then silently dropping it, or otherwise sending > inaccurate status codes, is kind of questionable. Yes, although there should still be an audit trail. As I said to Harry the other day, if you have a message ID from the receiving server you (probably) can chase it up, and no reputable anti-spam software will drop a message without keeping a log stating that it has done so. It is generally possible to find out why a legitimate message was dropped, though of course, somewhat after the event. > > And... these things ARE covered, at least in part, by RFCs" > > RFC5321 (latest SMTP spec), Section 6.2. (Unwanted, Unsolicited, and > "Attack" Messages) makes for interesting reading. > > For example: > "As discussed in Section 7.8 and Section 7.9 below, dropping mail > without notification of the sender is permitted in practice. However, > it is extremely dangerous and violates a long tradition and community > expectations that mail is either delivered or returned. If silent > message-dropping is misused, it could easily undermine confidence in > the reliability of the Internet's mail systems. So silent dropping of > messages should be considered only in those cases where there is very > high confidence that the messages are seriously fraudulent or > otherwise inappropriate." > There Is No Alternative. If a message is malicious spam, then it is absolutely certain that the 'From:' is forged, and no messages should be sent to it. There is some spam which might be called 'genuine', in that a real business has sent it under the impression that UCE is a legitimate marketing tool. In those cases only, a bounce message would be appropriate, but sometimes even I'm not sure whether a spam falls into this category. -- Joe -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20141014080829.3c130...@jresid.jretrading.com
