On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Dean Anderson wrote in reply to Doug Royer:
No. On once case your get a "no such host" error and never send the
email in the first place and the other case gets a bounce. Not the same
thing.
You don't seem to understand how mail works. In both cases you get a
bounce. In neither case is a message sent.
To correct you on matters emailish once again; a SMTP transaction can be
rejected _after_ the DATA (the complete message) has been completed.
The fact that Entity Foo _currently_ rejects the SMTP transaction before
the data statement is not a guarantee that Entity Foo will _always_ reject
the SMTP transaction before the data statement.
( See 4.2.5 of RFC2821 and 4.1.1 (&4.3) of RFC821 )
This is what some people are afraid of; that Entity Foo _does_ have the
_ability_ to intercept the complete email message, even though Entity Foo
does not appear to use it. For Doug's application, the fact that Entity
Foo (being a 3rd party) does have this ability is enough to dictate
careful reconsideration of its methodology.
I manage a site that sends mortgage documents. It NEEDS to be sure that
the destination is valid before sending confidential information.
This isn't broken. You won't send any messages because you won't get to
the "data" command. You will get an SMTP error code. The message is never
delivered to Verisign.
s/never/currently not/ .
Those claiming otherwise are simply lying, and using fear mongering
techniques, as you are below.
Actually, those claiming otherwise seem to have read and understood
various references on how email works.
--
Bruce Campbell I speak for myself.