🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <291@ima.com> kehres@ima.com (Tim Kehres) writes:
>One area that seems to generate a lot of concern is when it comes to UA's 
>taking it upon themselves to generate Return Receipts.  Most people, and
>some standards (like X.400) believe that this is unacceptable.   Whenever
>a return receipt request is detected by a UA, it should first get the approval
>of the user prior to sending out any notification.  As long as the user has
>control of how the UA will deal with return receipt notifications, I don't
>see much of a problem.  If they don't however, for me at least it would 
>represent an unacceptable invasion of privacy, and I would seriously 
>consider the use of another UA for this reason alone.


Among other things needed is a clearer definition or, more exactly, a
model to follow.  Clearly, this is not the model of Certified Mail in
the U.S. Postal System.  Certified Mail gets a return receipt sent to
the sender if the delivery agent delivered the mail.  Also, it gets
signed and stamped in an official, trusted manner.  

1. Certified Mail -- the compliant MTA certifies delivery to the
mailbox.  There may be an option to have this be digitally signed by
the system to have a valid and acceptable time stamp (like a Post
Office rubber date stamp).  This transaction is between the MTA and
the sender and the receiver should not have to okay this.  It is
certifying delivery. ("I did too get the RFP response to you on time.
See?  Here's my certified delivery report with a certifiable digital
signature."  Side note.  Someone who worked for me once scrambled to
get something FAXed to a customer before the 5pm deadline.  Customer
the week later said "We didn't look at it.  It was FAXed to us at
5:45PM -- not before 5pm!"  well...  No one had changed the clocks on
our FAX machines nor had anyone changed the clocks on theirs when
daylight savings time ended.  Easy to verify since they still
hadn't....  Did you change YOUR FAX machines? :-))

2. Read Receipt Requested.  The compliant UA should indicate "A Read
Receipt was requested.  Shall I send one?"  For non-smart UA's, The
header line should indicate to the reader that they are being asked to
confirm their reading it.

F