Re: [tlug] [slightly OT] SMTP and the internet, protocols and the internet

[Christian Horn <chorn@example.com>]

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 02:38:44AM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Christian Horn writes:
> 
>  > - the IP reverse lookup is now pointing at mail.fluxcoil.net
>  > 
>  > This is not convenient as all reverse lookups for the IP will
>  > now bring up mail.fluxcoil.net,
> 
> What does reverse lookups, besides SMTP?  It's in the RFCs for SMTP,
> but I don't know of any other protocol that specifies that reverse
> lookups have to round trip.  And not even SMTP asks that forward
> lookups round trip.
> 
> It's pretty common for reverse lookups of single-host domains to point
> at mail.* or smtp.* because of exactly this requirement of SMTP.

Fair point.  I did not think of any "I need reverse lookup or I fail"
services.  More like me interacting with the server from various 
clients (android mobile, linux clients), and preferring to see the
reverse lookup as fluxcoil.net and not mail.fluxcoil.net .


>  > So it's basically back to my original issue: a provider has setup
>  > rules asking me to publish my data, only then he will accept mails
>  > from me.
> 
> Can't help you with that.  I don't see why they think it's a great
> idea.  I don't see what problem having a physical location for an
> email admin solves for them.  Are they planning to send the gendarmes
> to arrest you there?

I guess it's just to increase chances of reaching someone in case 
there are complaints about mails from my domain.
The "searching on my website for name/address/phone" is done manually,
which is actually surprising: one would suspect more people run MTA
and try to send mails to them without that data in whois.
Maybe mail is already down to only the big players like gmail. t-online,
gmx, yahoo.

> Maybe whoever enforces GDPR where you are can help.

I think GDPR asked to get the data out of whois, from where it could
be easily gathered.  Just that with their idea of providing it via
website it could be even easier collected.

Chris