Re: Federal Rules of Evidence

[Valdis Kletnieks <Valdis.Kletnieks () VT EDU>]

On Fri, 02 Sep 2011 14:31:00 CDT, Ken Connelly said:

> Regardless, it's not the MUA that controls where a "reply" goes, but the
> MTA at the home of the list.

Erm, no, sorry, but thank you for playing..

Consider the following headers on a list posting:

From: Joe Sixpack <joe.sixpack () hotmail com>
To: Demo list <example-list () example com>

You as a subscriber get a posting from that list.  The MTA at example.com has
*zero* control over whether you do a "reply all" and thus send a direct copy to
Hotmail.com, or if you add other recipients, or make any other changes to where
the reply message goes.

The MLA (Mailing List Agent - which is usually *distinct* from the MTA) can
provide a *suggested* value using a Reply-To: header, but can't force an MUA to
actually follow it (I have a menu of Reply options - default reply, reply-all,
reply-to-Sender:, reply-to-From-ignoreReplyTo, and so on).

And the poor MTA can do absolutely *nothing* in the case of messages that
it never sees.  If you send a reply to hotmail.com, the MTA at example.com
never sees it, and can't do anything with it.  Incidentally, that's also why
duplicate suppression using Message-Id: tags is usually done at the MUA.

>                                         And pity the fool that set a list up so
> that the list address was the envelope-from on posts to the list!

Amen to that part. As a historical note, that sort of error is exactly *why*
the MLA is usually set up as a distinct entity from the MTA...

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