[ On Mon, April 7, 1997 at 16:22:31 (+0100), Philip Hazel wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: EXPN on wishlist?
>
> I would certainly claim that EXPN on a mailing list server would be a
> wonderful way for spammers to harvest addresses for their lists.
Well, of course, but if such contents are "private" then there are other
ways to hide their contents. What I'm thinking of is "security by
obscurity", of course, but it's very effective in this case:
To: my-mailing-list@???
Bcc: the-secret-name-for-my-mailing-list@???
EXPN my-mailing-list@???
postmaster@???
Implementation for list processors is left as an exercise for the
reader. ;-)
(I'm still looking for a good list processor that invokes the mailer
with the single address of an alias (or something akin to smail's
mailing list directors) for delivery to a list and otherwise just
manages the file of addresses used by the alias. There are rumours
smartmail can do this, but I've not had time to find out yet...)
> Looks to me as if your arguments for EXPN are all for its use as a poor
> man's email directory. I'd far rather people put up proper directories
> on the Web, where the information you want to give out (names,
> addresses, office numbers, whatever) can be divorced from the mechanics
> of delivering mail.
Ah, but it is exactly the diagnosing of the mechanics of delivering mail
that EXPN can be most useful for. It is the mismatch between what the
mailer actually does and what "proper directories" might claim which is
often the problem being diagnosed.
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 443-1734 VE3TCP robohack!woods
Planix, Inc. <woods@???>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@???>
