🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 29 Dec 2000 9:43:07 -0800, Paul Lew wrote
(in message <slrn94pj6v.gk.plew@crane.li-po.edu>):

> ORBS supplies the "guns and ammo".  I have "lost" email as the receiver
> never got them and they are with different ISPs.  ORBS just supply the
> list and tells others to act.

Does this mean I get to sue Chevrolet because they supply the 
high-performance Corvettes and just tell others to drive fast? 

> ORBS would need to provide me absolute proof that they didn't destroy
> my email before I would believe their claims of "only supplying a list".

This is a simple matter of common knowledge. Only parties to the mail can 
actually "destroy" it, those parties being:

1.) You
2.) Your ISP (transporting it to #4)
3.) Backbone ISP's
4.) Recipient ISP
5.) Recipient

As a matter of practice, #3 is completely agnostic and doesn't touch 
anything. #1 is the sender and has a vested interest in NOT destroying it. #2 
likewise is not going to destroy its own mail, and presumably #5 wants to 
actually receive it.

That leaves #4, the Recipient ISP. 

The recipient ISP consults a list, provided by ORBS and says "Hey, is #2 on 
this list?" and if they ARE, then #4 decides, based on their own policies, 
how to handle the message -- bounce it, drop it, accept it with added 
headers, accept it and drop it in a special "spambox" for the user to sift 
over, whatever their policy is, but in the end, ORBS itself is completely 
incapable of "destroying" your e-mail.