Re: Sender header?

[prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc)]

Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:
> You seem to believe that because only one person is involved in originating
> a message and submitting it that the one person has only one identity.
> This is not true.

A person may have multiple mailboxes, but where does RFC 2822 say that
a mailbox is an identity?

The RFC doesn't seem to be aware of the multiple-mailbox case, though.
3.6.2:
# The "Sender:" field specifies the mailbox of the agent responsible
# for the actual transmission of the message.
Note "the mailbox", not "a mailbox". :(

Also, I see no indication here that Sender should be tied to the
system where the message originated.  All the examples of uses of
Sender involve one person sending a message on behalf of someone else;
none of them involve one person sending their own message with a From
field that doesn't indicate the system they're sending from.  An
"agent" is apparently a person, and your mail address on one system
still identifies you even when you're sending mail from another.

By your interpretation, the RFC is requiring that every machine that
sends mail must be usable in a recipient address - i.e., the MX (or A)
for that name must be configured to accept mail addressed to that
individual host.  (Otherwise, user-login-name@system-name wouldn't be
a mailbox of the originator of the message.)  Do you think the authors
really intended to require this?


paul