You make a reasonable point. Unfortunately there is a
cost associated with that sort of generality. Protocols
that have this sort of flexibility tend to be more
complex, more buggy and slower to get adopted.
Then you tell me: who is the "originator" of a piece of mail
through a remailer?
In fact I think that that is an entirely reasonable question.
I view the difficulty of answering that, based on current
Internet standards, as supporting my comment about excessive
flexibility.
The difficulty in answering that question is impeding current
anti-spam work, in my view.
If MASS is to produce something quickly that is adopted
quickly, it needs to be absolutely as simple as we can
make it. This means limiting options and variable as much
as possible.
It adds no complexity to the sender(s); the infrastructure
required is identical. The receiver may or may not deal with
the additional complexity.
Receiver complexity can be a major obstacle to adoption.
Further, the more critical dependencies there are in a protocol's
adoption, the less likely it is to be adopted. My sense is that
the relationship is inverse and exponential.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
+1.408.246.8253
dcrocker(_at_)(_dot_)(_dot_)(_dot_)
brandenburg.com