Sam Hobbs said:
More often they don't. Most often it is not possible to
find an email address in the message that identifies who
sent the message.
Still not the point. Even if the e-mail address does not
identify who actually sent the message - it can still be a
*real* e-mail address.
If it were that easy, spam sent by that person would be
eliminated. Only an amateur spammer would send spam with a
*real* e-mail address anywhere in the message, except for
using someone else's address in which case it is worse
than none at all.
But it is *real* and can be verified as *real*.
If *real* e-mail address means someone else's email
address, then in the context of my message, it is
irrelevant whether the e-mail address is *real*.
Sorry, I substituted *real* for the OP's *valid*. There is a
difference between *my* real address and *any* real address.
If his software is supposed to check the validity of e-mail
addresses before allowing e-mail to be posted, that doesn't
necessarily mean it checks that it is the real address of a
member.
If that *is* the function, then it is even more broken than
I imagined.
I said "separate the good from the bad", and when someone
else's email address is used, a *real* e-mail address is
either not useful or results in an invalid diagnosis. The
invalid diagnosis is exactly why they use *real* e-mail
addresses.
Yes, if all it took to filter out spam was to check the
validity of e-mail addresses (and all spam used invalid
addresses) it would be a snap. That is *not* the case, and
the OP was not talking about spam filtering. He evidently
wants accountability for members' posted e-mails.
Anyway, either the filtering doesn't work, or the e-mail's
*valid* address is edited out after being posted.
