On 08/31/2011 01:27 PM, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote: > Stephen Harris wrote: >>> Here's a thought I just thunk, folks: some scum, apparently in eastern >>> Europe, has harvested my email, and is using it in the Reply-To: in its >>> spamming efforts. Now, I realize that some mails go out from noreply, >>> but >>> other than that, is there a good reason why a mailserver would not be >>> configured to send delivery failure to *both* Reply-To and From? >> >> You don't want to send rejects to more than one address 'cos you then >> have a simple message multiplier; send one message, generate two bounces; >> the mail server will be doubling the back-scatter problem! >> >> Anyway, the SMTP server should send the delivery failure to the envelope >> address, which may be different to both the From and Reply-To addresses. >> > That would be lovely. Unfortunately, a high percentage seem to use the > Reply-To address. Trust me, the last four or five months, I've gotten > probably hundreds, if not more, of delivery failures. And I wind up at > least glancing at them, in case email to this list, or to a friend, has > bounced. Mark, The Reply-To address is an optional component of the email header and is not used in email routing by mail servers. If the Reply-To is absent, mail clients compose a message to be sent to the sender listed in the From field instead. Mail server will send NDRs (non-delivery receipts) back to the envelope sender every time with no regard for From or Reply-To. -- Josh Miller Open Source Solutions Architect http://itsecureadmin.com/