Subject: RE: DEPLOY: Legal liability for creating bounces from forged messages

From: "Jim Lyon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 15:26:19 -0700

On Thursday, August 26, 2004 at 7:01 PM, Chris Haynes wrote about
whether the RFC's and ID's really do or do not give one the legal
authority to silently discard forged email.

I offered a reading of the docs that supports the case for silent
discards.  Chris offers a reading of the same docs that supports the
case against forged email.

I agree that both readings are plausible.  My point is that it is wrong
to state that there is no support whatsoever for the idea of silent
discards.  There is, but it depends on how one reads arguably ambiguous
documents.  (This is how lawyers make a living.)

Even though the standards are ambiguous, there is ample precedent for
the action.  I can demonstrate (on the basis of only 2 ISPs) that more
than 10% of all email sent today is silently discarded.

Nevertheless, this has strayed a long way from MARID's charter.  It
does, however, point to a need for more clarity in one's
responsibilities in this area.

-- Jim Lyon

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 08:45:07 -0400 (EDT)

> case against forged email.
<snip>
> than 10% of all email sent today is silently discarded.

(There are lots of criminals performing crimes, that doesn't make crime 
acceptable).  The SMTP RFC's clearly state "reliable".  The reason some 
ISP's are discarding is obvious, but irrelevant.  This WG should be trying 
to get us to a better (compliant) place, not justify existing bad behaviour.

> responsibilities in this area.

Agreed

-- 
Terry Fielder
Manager Software Development and Deployment
Great Gulf Homes / Ashton Woods Homes
[email-masked]
Fax (416) 441-9085