Re: Checking `Reply-To'

[Steven L Baur <steve@miranova.com>]

Stainless Steel Rat writes:

>>>>>> "Hrv" == Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

Hrv> Regardless of GNKSA, I think Gnus should perform the same checks for
Hrv> `Reply-To' as it does for `From'.  What do you think?

I felt the GNKSA/U review of RadicalNews was mean-spirited and the
reviewer had an axe to grind, but that's besides the point.

> I think this is a violation of RFC822, actually.  It depends on just what
> kinds of checking Gnus performs.  A common use of Reply-To (and one of the
> intents of RFC822) is to specify a gatewayed mailbox that will work when
> the conventional "user@domain" format will fail.  Such addresses have
> potentially infinite chance to fail the tests for an Internet "user@domain"
> address because most are completely different, and many are technically
> illlegal.

Yup.  Consider example A.2.4 from RFC822:

     A.2.4.  Committee activity, with one author

             George is a member of a committee.  He wishes to have any
        replies to his message go to all committee members.

            From:     George Jones <Jones@Host.Net>
            Sender:   Jones@Host
            Reply-To: The Committee: Jones@Host.Net,
                                     Smith@Other.Org,
                                     Doe@Somewhere-Else;

        Note  that  if  George  had  not  included  himself   in   the


     August 13, 1982              - 37 -                      RFC #822

 
     Standard for ARPA Internet Text Messages


        enumeration  of  The  Committee,  he  would not have gotten an
        implicit reply; the presence of the  "Reply-to"  field  SUPER-
        SEDES the sending of a reply to the person named in the "From"
        field.

Example A.2.6 has another example containing an address that would
otherwise be considered invalid.
-- 
steve@miranova.com baur
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