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Re: [Asrg] We don't need no stinkin IMAP or POP, was Adding a spam button to MUAs

2010-02-06 06:19:43


On Sat, 6 Feb 2010, John Levine wrote:

Also, everyone's talking about POP and IMAP as if they were all there
is.  What about cases where the user's mailbox is accessed other ways?

I think the latest round of discussion has eliminated any interest in the
message retrieval mechanism.

Um, this discussion has been about keying the ARF report to the name
of the POP or IMAP server, remember?

I pick up my mail through an SSH tunnel to my imap server, so my MUA
thinks the name of the server is localhost:2143.  I have no idea how
many people use MUAs picking up mail other than by contacting a named
POP or IMAP server, but the number is definitely greater than zero.

This is easily overcome.

Make the ARF reporting address a configurable option, but default it to a role account at the email domain of the machine from which incoming mail is obtained. Surely if the user can tunnel their mail over ssh, they can configure the correct option (if they so desire) and if the MTA wishes to offer this service. This is a vanishingly small problem, in any case.


Note that the report goes to an email address, the MUA is expected to dispatch it using the usual MSA already configured for outgoing mail.

I understand that many POP/IMAP servers do not accept mail on the SMTP or MSA ports and there is nothing here to suggest that they should. Only that they have an MX record pointing to a machine that will.

The MTA operator is welcome to route the mail to any machine it prefers using the well established techniques for doing so. There is no need to invent any new procedures.

Surely the need here is for the MUA to communicate some information to the system that supplies it with incoming mail. Defaulting to a role account on that system surely covers the possibilities. If that system does not wish to receive email, then an MX record can divert it to another physical system. If it wishes to receive other mail, but not ARF reports, then why do ARF reports have this special need that no other role account has?

As to users being confused by MTAs that do not support the ARF reporting account and harassing the MTA operator, then perhaps that operator will
change his way, or at least null route that address.


Daniel Feenberg


Some mail collection methods that break the all IMAP and POP theory:

* WebDAV (Outlook Express has used that to pick up Hotmail)

* Various sorts of tunnels that mask the address of the server

* Reading the mail store via NFS

* Uucp or other batched delivery to a local mail store

R's,
John
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