Re: A+ technoglogies + a question

[dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff)]

Don #23 (leed@sfsu.edu) wrote:

: 	Secondly, perhaps Richard you can answer this one as well, I 
: would've simply sent you a reply, but twice my mail was sent back with 
: the message user unknown.  Now, the question is how can someone send an 
: email with an address that doesn't exist, or the system doesn't know it 
: is not there?  I find that very unusual.  It is by the way, the second 
: time today my reply was sent back with the message that the user was 
: unknown.  Anyone out there with any reasonable answer to this?  I have 
: never had this happen before.  

The most logical answer I can come up with is that the person sent the
mail message from a SLIP account with a broken mail program.  "Broken" in
the sense that the return address header is not properly set.  It will
send messages, but those messages will have hosed headers that the
replying mail programs won't interpret correctly.  As I understand it
(warning!  this is way out of my league, really...), the outgoing mail
message has the sender's email address in the headers, but it is the
sending program's responsibility to get that header right.  If the header
is wrong, the receiving host has no way of verifying it, except that when
you try to send a reply, the message will bounce.

As a result of all this, it should be possible to send anonymous e-mail,
but I believe that is a violation of most systems' Acceptable Use Policies.

Returning you now to the discussion of things Apple ][...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
-- 
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