FIPR amendment on "comms data"

[Tom Thomson]

> If you want to stretch the point then at the most Plod should only have
> access to the "Received:" headers since they are not "original" message
> headers or text.
>
> However I would argue a more restrictive definition and suggest that in an
> SMTP exchange between any two relay hosts, *everything* that comes after
> the DATA statement should be treated as content. This would include
> progressively more "Received:" headers as the message traversed relay
> hosts.
>
> The key issue here is that none of this is used, nor effects in any way,
> the ability of the transmission system to effect delivery of the message
> (to the next relay host). I thought I saw this as a condition that defines
> "communications data" in RIP?

Some relays use the "Received:" headers for loop detectiion; some use
them for loop avoidance; there were proposals (probably never
implemented, since any relay that implemented loop-detection using
them would wreck such a scheme) to use them for backtracking in
adaptive mail routing over networks subject to frequent breaks. That
seems to make these headers "communications data" rather than
"content" because such uses are clearly for the communications
system. Anothe thing that suggests they are not content is that they
are added by intermediate relays - surely something other than what
the originator of the email supplies is not content?

Tom Thomson