[Mailman-Developers] Opening up a few can o' worms here...

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "JRA" == Jay R Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> writes:

    JRA> Mutt's highlighting regexes are pretty decent, but I don't
    JRA> know that *any* RE can match both quoted and non-quoted
    JRA> mailbox names reliably.

You have to invoke the 80/20 rule or you'll either go insane, or
duplicate mail-extr.el's syntax driven state machine in your
programming language of choice.

    JRA> There's an argument going on somewhere else right now -- I
    JRA> thought it was bugtraq, but I seem to have misplaced the
    JRA> message -- about whether email addresses can have an RHS that
    JRA> terminates in a .

    JRA> The poster says no way, I say that 2821 and 1034/5 say yes.

I'm not sure.  2822 would be the definitive RFC wouldn't it?

-------------------- snip snip --------------------
addr-spec       = local-part "@" domain
local-part      = dot-atom / quoted-string / obs-local-part
dot-atom        = [CFWS] dot-atom-text [CFWS]
dot-atom-text   = 1*atext *("." 1*atext)
atext           =       ALPHA / DIGIT / ; Any character except controls,
                        "!" / "#" /     ;  SP, and specials.
                        "$" / "%" /     ;  Used for atoms
                        "&" / "'" /
                        "*" / "+" /
                        "-" / "/" /
                        "=" / "?" /
                        "^" / "_" /
                        "`" / "{" /
                        "|" / "}" /
obs-local-part  = word *("." word)
word            = atom / quoted-string
atom            = [CFWS] 1*atext [CFWS]
-------------------- snip snip --------------------

It would seem that the local-part can't end in a `.'.

    JRA> Someone has to fix the problem.  It has been proven to my
    JRA> satisfaction that the technologists can't: it's not a
    JRA> technology-fix problem (so few 'problems' are).  Someone has
    JRA> to get *pissed*.

In a different context, the same question: do you think the corporate
fraud reforms now being debated in congress will solve the problem?
People /are/ pissed and are demanding both technological and
non-technological fixes.  But maybe it's just 3am and I'm starting to
hallucinate. ;)

> I can't give any definite examples to protect the people involved, but I
> know of a couple of people who've had their careers significantly impacted
> because of this stuff. Maybe not fatal, but third degree burns.

    JRA> The topic being false-positive-ly blocked "spam", aren't
    JRA> those evidence for the prosecution, not the defense?

False positives don't scare me, but that's because we've got at least
5 volunteer postmasters screening the reports and rescuing probably 1
message a week, if that.  What happens when the true-positives start
making a stink because they demand that their spam get through?

    JRA> Letting spam through likely only gets you yelled at;
    JRA> accidentally blocking important stuff gets you burned.

    JRA> We are on the critical path, folks.  I know you know that,
    JRA> but the explicit reminder isn't going to get me fired.
    JRA> Fail-safe isn't just for aerospace anymore.

In a way I agree, but by the same token, email is such a flakey system
throughout that I think people have fairly low expectations that a
message they send will get delivered, read, and answered.  If you
positively must get an answer to a question and in a hurry, email's a
lousy way to ensure that.

-Barry