For those following Sender based authentication - a question

[Dan Jenkins]

Jeff Macdonald wrote:

> Anybody agree with the following statement?
> 
> The HELO domain represents the mail provider used by the author of the
> message and thus is more closely related to the author than any other
> header within the message.
> 
> This is from the CSV doc to the FTC. Is is just mean, or does this
> seem to ignore multiple hops?
> 

HELO (or EHLO) is just the LAST machine to deliver the message. It
doesn't have to be close to the author whatsoever. For example, I have
systems which deliver their own email, except to certain domains, in
which case they use another SMTP server. So, the HELO is sometimes x.y.z
and other times a.b.c.

I have machines that relay mail from the outside world to internal mail
servers - and vice versa. If you look at our in-house mail server, ALL
messages begin with EHLO office.rastech.com.

If that's what the FTC is basing stuff on, someone ought to educate them
quickly.

-- 
Dan Jenkins (dan at rastech.com)
Rastech Inc., Bedford, NH, USA --- 1-603-206-9951
*** Technical Support for over a Quarter Century