In <20041118133154(_dot_)494982(_at_)bbprime> Dave Crocker
<dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> writes:
> bounce messages need to go to the author or the person
> responsible for posting the message.
>
While you're using my box I'm still responsible for what you
do with it.
Yes. But that is the difference between MTA validation versus
author validation. SPF conflates the two.
No SPF does not. You man be confused. You many have only recently
realized that the 2821.MAILFROM is the bounces to address, but many of
us have know that for a long time. (Having grown up on UUCP-net
during the 1980s, this distinction has been clear to me for close to
two decades now.)
SPF deals with the MAIL FROM. It does not deal with the author.
Please understand this.
If the bounce address is used, it is because the destination address
is problematic. That is something that the rfc2822.author and/or
rfc2822.sender need to know. It is entirely irrelevant to the MTA
operator. The latter is typically a third-party, with no interest
in bad destination addresses, nor ability to do anything about them.
That is not always true. A misconfigured MTA will often be the cause
of a bounce to a perfectly valid email address. This kind of
configuration problem is generally something that an end user has no
idea what it means or how to fix it and often something that only the
mail admin can fix.
-wayne