Re: RFC 5321bis / 2821ter

John C Klensin wrote:
> The following are all 
> perfectly valid decisions under 5321 as written:
>         * Rejecting the EHLO command and message because the
>         argument does not follow the syntax rules.
>
>         * Rejecting the EHLO command and message because the
>         apparent FQDN in the argument does not resolve at all in
>         the public DNS.
>
>         * Noticing that the EHLO argument does not resolve to
>         the address obtained from the connection, writing a
>         private-use header into the message that records that
>         fact, and then forwarding/delivering the message anyway.
>
>         * Noticing that the EHLO argument does not resolve to
>         the address obtained from the connection, delivering the
>         message anyway, but delivering it to a folder different
>         from the one that would normally be used for incoming
>         messages associated with the RCPT command address.
I agree with Paul that the second point is not obvious. The text above 
is much clearer than the spec!
> > DNS/whois data has experienced a series of adjustments for the 
> > sake of privacy and users' right to anonymity. I accept that it should 
> > be possible for a user to send mail anonymously. However, I'd 
> > refuse that the operators of an SMTP relay may remain anonymous. Is that a 
> > more or less universally agreed stance?
> It depends on _exactly_ how you define "SMTP relay".  If it 
> includes submission servers, the same privacy arguments that 
> have been applied to senders would apply to it too.
I beg to differ. As a postmaster, I may grant anonymity to my users. 
For example, I may suppress identification in the Received header. 
Thus, I can be readily identifiable, e.g. via whois information, while 
my users can send anonymously by altering their From header. Note that 
their anonymity is only granted until a judge will want to investigate 
my logs. (Since 2005, the Italian law forces "operators" to keep logs 
of mail transactions for some months; in the UK, they've been 
discussing this recently --it's an EU anti-terrorism determination.)
Not being an anonymous operator involves choosing an ISP that does 
reverse DNS delegations, and registering a domain directly rather than 
 through a whois-privacy-enhanced registrar. The first step is not 
always possible, which is why we had that discussion on submission 
identifiers. The second step is the rule, AFAIK. Although I know that 
whois queries on each incoming message would not be tolerated, what I 
meant to ask is whether the recognizability implied by the EHLO 
command is meant, from an ethical POV, to reject anonymous relays.
>  The ability 
> to close down or restrict traffic from servers that support 
> anonymous senders is equivalent to the ability to shut the 
> anonymous senders down.
I don't think I know what you mean. Formally, I cannot know if an SMTP 
server supports anonymous senders.