I've recently seen some MAIL (single and on lists) coming through something
called "General Delivery" (and with an address of <POSTMASTER@node>). Some
of those came from VAXen ...
As an example - here's one such a header:
*-----------------------
>Reply-To: General Delivery <POSTMASTER@SEMAX51>
>Sender: SAS Discussion <SAS-L@AWIIMC11>
>Comments: This is gatewayed mail. Warning: Mail may not necessarily be
> returnable through this path.
>From: General Delivery <POSTMASTER@SEMAX51>
>Subject: Plea for help with PROC GCHART /PIE
>To: Christian Reichetzeder <REICHETZ@AWIIMC11>
*-----------------------
There's no indication in the header who sent that - and I don't know if the
"General Delivery" checks if there's an address in the text. But I think you
could end up with some mail you are unable to respond to directly. Moreover
the above named node is *not* running a MAILER - and you will have troubles
to send something to "POSTMASTER".
To state it clearly once again: there are other sites doing this...
I don't know if this is the forum to discuss this, but since it affects
LISTSERV I put it here first.
To summarize:
There are nodes on BITNET which:
a) send through some kind of "gateway"
b) which in turn gives no indication of the original sender
c) and also give no address to send to for "General Reply" (i.e. neither
is the "gateway" addressable (because of the long name) nor exists a
MAILER or something like that which could be sent through)
Comments ?
Christian