Re: A (possibly) better way to get input integrity

Perry E. Metzger (perry@imsi.com)
Sun, 26 Feb 1995 13:12:53 -0500

der Mouse says:
> > Since when do we have email addresses with `|;{(*&'?, return and
> > newline in them?  For that matter, why should we allow for inputs
> > with 8-bit bytes, ^D, ^Z, or other control, meta, or escape
> > characters.  These are not legitimate email address components and
> > should not be permitted for this purpose.
> 
> I disagree about some of those.  High-half characters (128-255), which
> is presumably what you mean by "8-bit bytes", are necessary if you are
> to be taken seriously outside the USA.

RFC 822 doesn't permit these characters in addresses (or elsewhere in
the text.) The MIME standards define clean ways to embed eight (and
more!) bit character sets into mail headers, so this isn't really a
problem. I suggest that conservatism in this is quite reasonable.

Perry