"Mailbox" Specification in Addresses
Seth Honeycutt
This is a suggested possible idea for Internet Mail
with RFC 822 / RFC
2822,
etc. It is similar to "disposable e-mail
addresses", but
implemented in a different way. It is suggested
as a standard so
that it can be used by anyone with a currently
existing e-mail account
and an e-mail client. (The phrase "mailbox" in
quotes used below
does not refer to the word [mailbox] that is used in
RFC 822 that
refers to a username / account mailbox on a mail
server.) The
suggestion is to add an optional “mailbox”
specification to the
username part of the address text
string of an e-mail address. This “mailbox”
specification could
be used as an effective way to virtually eliminate
SPAM (which I will
explain about in more detail) and also, as a side
benefit, give a nice
tool to organize a user’s incoming mail. An
example address could
look something like this:<br>
<br>
<a
href="mailto:user101:mai...@domain.com">user101:mai...@domain.com</a>=
<br>
<br>
The [:] colon character could be used to separate the
username from the
“mailbox” name and then the rest of the address after
the [@] symbol
would be the same. Adding a “mailbox”
specification should be
compatible with SMTP and any e-mail sender’s client
software since it
will consider everything in front the [@] symbol to be
a
username. There would only need to be slight
changes with the
server software of a receiving mail server <span
style="font-style: italic;">that
wants to offer this service to their
own users</span>. A server that allows this
service would need to
analyze
the username in an incoming e-mail address differently
by only looking
at everything before the [:] colon when looking for
the username.
The server (especially one the uses POP3 when users
check their mail)
doesn’t need to concern itself with the “mailbox”
specification, but
can just let the user’s client software take care of
that. One
way you could use “mailbox” names for organizational
purposes is that,
on a business card, you could say [<a
href="mailto:user.name:cli...@work.com">user.name:clie...@work.com</a>=
]
so all mail from potential business clients who use
that address will
end up in a clients “mailbox” view in your e-mail
program.<br>
<br>
In regards to how this could be used to virtually
eliminate unsolicited
mail, you could use the “mailbox” specification in the
following
ways. When you give your e-mail address to
someone, like all your
family members, you could give them something like
this (which they
could still put in their e-mail program’s address book
just like any
e-mail address): [<a
href="mailto:user101:fami...@domain.com">user101:fami...@domain.com</=
a>].
Your e-mail client software (and possibly the server)
could be set to
not accept any e-mail that doesn’t include a “mailbox”
specification or
includes a “mailbox” name that you haven’t
created. You could
then have a special folder or “mailbox” view that
would show all of
your e-mail from family members. The “mailbox”
name could act
almost like a password (something that SPAMers
wouldn’t be able to
guess without sending out thousands of attempts) but
that you could
give out as part of your e-mail address. It
would be very
unlikely that a family member would give that
“mailbox” name away on a
SPAMers list; but even if they did you would only need
to change the
“mailbox” name with your family members to stop
it. With
“mailbox” names your whole e-mail account should never
be completely
corrupted if it ends up on a SPAMers list, since you
can just delete
the “mailbox” name the SPAMer’s are using to send you
e-mail and not
having to go looking for a new e-mail account.<br>
<br>
Probably the number-one way your e-mail address
ends-up on a SPAMer’s
list is by entering your e-mail address on a website
to sign-up for a
newsletter or if it is required to use their website’s
services.
You could create a special mailbox just for
newsletters that you
solicit and want to receive. Whenever you
sign-up for a
newsletter you could type in something like [<a
href="mailto:user101:news304-...@domain.com">user101:news304-site.=
c...@domain.com</a>].
You could increase security with a “mailbox” by
creating virtual
“mailbox” names that includes both fixed and variable
parts. In
your e-mail client you could specify a “mailbox” name
for your
newsletters by including a wildcard character(s) [*]
or [?] in the
name. For instance you could name the mailbox
something like
these: [news*], [???news91], [news*letters], or
[newsletters-*].
The e-mail client will then accept any email to that
virtual “mailbox”
that has those fixed parts, but can have any number of
alpha-numeric
characters wherever the wildcard [*] character
appears, or just a
single varying alpha-numeric character where a [?]
wildcard character
appears. This would allow you to give a random
set of numbers or
letters where the wildcard is in the newsletter
“mailbox” name each
time you give your e-mail address to sign-up for a
newsletter on a
website. For instance, on one website you could
enter
[user101:news2549] and then for another newsletter
something like
[user101:news8f3c], etc. If just one of the
newsletters you
signed-up for leaked your e-mail address to a SPAM
list, you can just
block that one virtual “mailbox” name that you used
when signing-up for
that newsletter and still receive the other
newsletters just the
same. Another benefit is that you would be able
to tell who
leaked your e-mail address by comparing the e-mail
address “mailbox”
name that was used by the SPAMers that also matches
the “mailbox” name
used by one of the newsletter senders. Wildcards
shouldn't be
used too liberally because wildcards increase the
number of accepted
"mailbox" names significantly (depending on how you
use them), but that
decision would be up to each user on how secure they
want their
"mailbox" names to be.<br>
<br>
Thank you for your time in considering something like
this for
improving e-mail. I have had to abandon a few
e-mail accounts
already from getting too much SPAM there, and by
having “mailbox” names
you could keep your e-mail address forever and just
change certain
“mailbox” names that get corrupted (which by having
“mailbox” names in
the first place would make that unlikely to happen
anyway). I
currently live in fear of my new address getting into
the wrong hands
and having to get a new address all over again (even
though I am
careful and have a free address just for bulk mail and
entering on
websites for mailing lists). Something similar
to this should
work with the current
Internet e-mail protocols (especially on the sender’s
side and with
SMTP in general) except for adding a patch to the
server software for
receiving servers that want to offer this service to
their users, that
will
interpret everything before the [:] colon as the
username. The
POP3 protocol wouldn’t need to be changed, except for
possibly adding
new features like a user choosing to have the server
block all e-mail
that doesn’t designate a “mailbox” name or possibly
storing “mailbox”
names on the server to block unwanted e-mail at the
server level (which
would help reduce SPAM Internet traffic). IMAP
would probably
want to integrate the “mailbox”
names into its features since they already have things
like user-side
folders
and mailboxes that could work with the address-side
“mailbox”
names in the e-mail address itself. Thank you
again for you time
in considering some way to designate address-side
“mailboxes” in an
Internet mail address.<br>
<br>
(P.S. Another standard separator character (or just an
extra
alternative character) besides the [:] colon [which
is currently not allowed in usernames because it is
designated for
specifying groups which shouldn't cause a conflict
from what I figured]
could be used if there would be
problems in using it in some applications or
protocols. Since the
[:] is currently not allowed it should not appear in
any existing user
/ account names on a mail server. I tested
the <a
href="mailto:user101:fami...@domain.com"></a>
HTML
tags in both Internet Explorer 6.0 and Netscape 7.0
and they both
worked properly creating a new message in an e-mail
client, as I
expected they would. I also attempted to send an
e-mail to [<a
href="mailto:user101:fami...@domain.com">user101:fami...@domain.com</=
a>]
and it seemed to go through SMTP okay with just a
return e-mail from
the domain.com mail server saying the username was
unknown as I
expected.)<br>
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