From: Henry Spencer (henry@spsystems.net)
Date: Mon Jun 03 2002 - 09:17:27 CDT
On Mon, 3 Jun 2002, Frank Ellermann wrote:
> Most participants don't like invalid addresses, but accept the
> idea of (ab)using TLD .invalid as smallest damage in comparison
> with me@privacy.net, "modified" addresses, or other constructs
> to avoid spam.
Then they've completely misunderstood the issue.
Nobody is proposing that spam avoidance be done by simply appending
".invalid" to a valid domain name. That would fool the spammers for
about five minutes. (Okay, maybe ten -- they're not very bright.)
The notion is that ".invalid" is used to *mark* mangled addresses as
such, so that people and software will know they are unusable for replies.
Instead of me@nospam.please, you'd write me@nospam.please.invalid -- just
as mangled, but clearly labeled as such (and guaranteed not to conflict
with a possible future ".please" TLD).
This fully conforms to RFC 2606's definition of ".invalid": "for use in
online construction of domain names that are sure to be invalid and which
it is obvious at a glance are invalid".
Henry Spencer
henry@spsystems.net