ietf-822
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Re: authenticating the source of mail

2002-05-20 05:39:24

1. it's a non-starter to force senders to submit to/relay through any
   particular host or hosts.  people can and do send mail from
   anywhere, and this is essential functionality.

Providing a list of authorized senders is a sender-side choice. As such,
this is an elective system and has to be recognized as one.

right.  but it's an elective system that has significant barriers to
actually being used.

Why? The only reasonable argument I've seen against it is your 'wanting to
send mail through any server' argument. For 99% or more users, this won't
be an issue.

I've seen several unsophisticated users who routinely post from multiple
accounts from different ISPs, using a variety of SMTP servers, but using
the same From address.  I've seen several slighlty more sophisticated users
who maintain multiple mailboxes and post from multiple From addresses
via the same ISP and SMTP server.  

Even if these people represent less than 1% of the population, it's still
valuable functionality.  Perhaps more to the point, it's also a set of people 
whose mail cannot be disregarded.

Keith