email address verification

[Steve Holden]

"Cameron Laird" <claird at starbase.neosoft.com> wrote in message
news:6491BB8AD25B69BC.0BFC7C13FCE3713E.F0B7BA5A511B6DBC at lp.airnews.net...
> In article <99fo48$d9h$1 at solaria.cc.gatech.edu>,
> Holland King  <insanc at cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
> >Cameron Laird <claird at starbase.neosoft.com> wrote:
> >: I don't understand your description.  In general,
> >
> >ok, we run a server that holds a lot of accounts, once an account expires
> >then we run a script that parses the .forward file found in the home
> >dir. the script then takes the addresses found and makes them into
aliases
> >so that hopefully the user will not lose any mail. we need to make sure
> >that the aliases are real addresses so that at worst mail is not bounced
> >and at best it doesn't go to a mailing list (i know i am being an
optimist)
> It's a good question to ask--but one which
> turns out to be quixotic.  Not only can one
> make no guarantees by a "static" examination
> of a purported e-mail address, my own exper-
> ience is that there are few heuristics which
> are worth implementing.  So much can and
> does happen at the recipient end of an e-mail
> transaction that it's nearly fruitless to
> try to automate.
> >
> >: comp.mail.misc might be a more productive place to
> >: ask these questions than c.l.p.
> >
> >ok thank you i will try there to, the reason i asked here is that i tried
> >comp.linux.misc and they didn't help and i am writing it in python (i
> >think my orignal post mention that i had found the smtp library and i
> >was wondering if there was something similar that would work)
> I understand.  It's a reasonable presumption.

You also need to remember that some domains (such as bellatlantic.net) won't
even raise a bounce message on an expired account, so it might appear mail
is getting through even when nobody will ever see it.

regards
 Steve