ietf-mxcomp
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: MTAs should focus on email TRANSPORT not email CONTENT

2004-07-19 18:07:17

Le mardi 20 Juillet 2004 02:44, Terje Petersen a écrit :

[...] An MTA is a "message TRANSFER agent". Its job should not necessitate
reading the DATA content of email.

I agree.

My view is that the MARID standard should proceed as follows:-

1. Use SPF classic to verify the MAIL FROM address.

Yes.

2. Use SUBMITTER as an alternative test point if the sending MTA supports
it. Otherwise break forwarding after the flag date.

I would personally rather drop the SUBMITTER concept completely. It looks to 
me like a kludge that tries to give before the DATA stream the results of a 
computation made with this DATA stream contents.

This solution doesn't look right to me.

(Shevek also discusses SUBMITTER at the end of his 
http://www.libsrs2.org/srs/srs.pdf document, finds it to be bad, and I share 
his point of view regarding this)

Conceptually the postal worker should not be opening mail in order to make
the delivery. [...] Just as the postal worker should not need to look at
mail content so the MTA should not be looking at the DATA section of email.

I agree.

MTAs should deal with transport.
MUAs should deal with content.

Again, I 100% agree with this statement.

Having the MTA dip inside the DATA section in order to complete its job
breaks the layered approach to transport. Breaking the layering limits the
future potential of SMTP. Layering should not be broken without good cause.

Yes, yes, and yes.

Regards.

-- 
Michel Bouissou <michel(_at_)bouissou(_dot_)net> OpenPGP ID 0xDDE8AC6E