Re: obscure email address formats

"Marcus J. Ranum" <[email protected]> Mon, 23 May 2011 18:25:15 -0400
Newsgroups gmane.comp.security.firewalls.wizards
Organization Ranum.Com
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On 5/23/2011 4:30 PM, ArkanoiD wrote:
> Is there any good reason to allow email addresses (in smtp, imap and alikes)
> in any format different from mailbox@fqdn ?

There is a good reason not to allow them: it will help force
everyone to use the de facto standard, correctly. If you
start accepting variants then the variants will work, and
might survive in the wild.

I made exactly that argument about X.400 in 1989, if I
recall. :) I was trying to make my firewall only pass
[email protected] format, because I felt it would be an honor to
hammer my own small nail into that particular coffin. :)

mjr.
-- 
Marcus J. Ranum		CSO, Tenable Network Security, Inc.
			http://www.tenable.com