[arin-ppml] How bad is it really?

[James Hess]

On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 10:22 PM, Stephen Sprunk <stephen at sprunk.org> wrote:
> On 13 Jul 2010 01:48, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>> Before getting too worked up, please keep in mind that the fact that
>> the mail message was ACCEPTED by your mail system and not immediately
>> bounced, indicates that there's a valid e-mail box there.
> No, it does not.  I'm aware of at least one firewall appliance that
> "accepts" all mail submitted to any address and, after doing some
> security checks, blindly forwards it to an internal smarthost (which

I will agree some spam traps  catch mail sent to non-existent e-mail addresses
("domain catch-all e-mail rule"),  and pretend that delivery has
succeeded,  while discarding the message.

It is possible the e-mail address was deleted,  or the mailbox is no
longer checked by a human (abandoned but still existent mailbox).

It may also be possible that a completely different new person now
owns the mailbox.
ex:  mailbox was deleted,  6-12 months later, a new person  with a
similar name  joined the organization,
and they would  end up with the exact same e-mail address that used to
belong to a contact.

>> I'd hazard a guess that if you didn't click on the link at all that
>> ARIN is going to still consider the POC  "most likely valid".


What point would there be even  sending the link if  a user not
clicking on it would fail to indicate that the record was invalid?

It would make about as much sense as sending them a link to click on
if  "their e-mail address was no longer operational"

A contact that cannot  even act on a request to verify themselves
(especially if multiple reminders to verify are sent),   is not a
responsive contact..


-- 
-JH