[PLUG] Relaying, Bell Atlantic and list Reply-To header

[Chuck Peters <cp@ccil.org>]

At ccil.org we limit relaying to specified IP's.  The list includes CCIL's
IP's as well as some other local ISP's.  But this doesn't help if a CCIL
user is on some big ISP/IP's we don't list.  One solution used is SMTP
Authenication but only some mail clients like Netscape and Outlook support
it and that sucks. Does anyone have any suggestions for a better solution?

I would very much prefer to use standard Debian packages on potato or
woody with LDAP authenication.  Does anyone know what I need to install to
setup smtp authenication?

I don't know how many of you heard about Verizon/Bell Atlantic ISP
customers can no longer user the email address of thier choice.  They are
forced into using a Reply-To if they wish to use an outside domain for
mail (and they use the Bell smtp relay servers).  It was last week that I
read the article, so I don't have the link handy, but it did say that
50,000 of the 950,000 customers are effected.

Today I returned a call to a CCIL user/Bell customer about this issue and
that reminded me about PLUG using this Reply-To on lists.  If this CCIL
user/Bell customer were on the list, his Reply-To would be rewritten by
the list header rewrite.  I don't know how many of you will have problems
with this, but we may have a few list members that are Bell customers and
use other email addresses.

The PLUG list has "Reply-To: plug@lists.phillylinux.org", I would suggest
that it be changed. Marc Merlin of SVLUG and VA Linux explains the issues
very well at http://marc.merlins.org/netrants/reply-to-harmful.html.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from Marc's page:

<quote>
Coddling the Brain-Dead, Penalizing the Conscientious
There are, unfortunately, poorly implemented mail programs that lack
separate reply-to-author and reply-to-group functions.  A user saddled
with such a brain-dead mailer can benefit from Reply-To munging.  It makes
it easier for him or her to send responses directly to the list.

This change, however, penalizes the conscientious person that uses
a reasonable mailer.  This is a poor trade-off.  As Internet list
administrators, we should encourage people to run reasonable software.
If a few people need to type in a full reply address so that everybody
else can use all the features of their mailer, I say, ``Fine!''  We
should not penalize the conscientious to coddle those who run brain-dead
software.
</quote>

We run a number of lists using mailman here at CCIL and will be offering
virtual domain lists to individuals, non-profits and community groups.
Ironically, the CCIL board prefers we coddle the brain dead and would
probably prefer we setup the "Reply-To", but they don't administrate our
systems. ;)

Thanks,
Chuck




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