Stainless Steel Rat writes: > there is no requirement that a Message-ID string contain a domain name. Yes, there is. RFC822, page 44, appendix D, syntax rule listing: optional-field = / "Message-ID" ":" msg-id msg-id = "<" addr-spec ">" ; Unique message id addr-spec = local-part "@" domain ; global address domain = sub-domain *("." sub-domain) sub-domain = domain-ref / domain-literal domain-literal = "[" *(dtext / quoted-pair) "]" domain-ref = atom ; symbolic reference atom = 1* Lest anyone think this allows OWHN (one-word hostnames) on the right-hand side of `@' (which was OK in RFC822's pre-DNS days), note the "global address" comment above on addr-spec -- a OWHN was sufficiently "global", prior to DNS -- and see that RFC1123 expressly denies this in §5.2.18 anyhow: Errors in formatting or parsing 822 addresses are unfortunately common. This section mentions only the most common errors. A User Agent MUST accept all valid RFC-822 address formats, and MUST NOT generate illegal address syntax. ... o Some systems fail to fully-qualify domain names in messages they generate. The right-hand side of an "@" sign in a header address field MUST be a fully-qualified domain name. ... DISCUSSION: Although RFC-822 allows the local use of abbreviated domain names within a domain, the application of RFC-822 in Internet mail does not allow this. The intent is that an Internet host must not send an SMTP message header containing an abbreviated domain name in an address field. This allows the address fields of the header to be passed without alteration across the Internet, as required in Section 5.2.6. --karl