Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Andrew Johnson via Tech-talk <[email protected]> · Fri, 14 Dec 2018 16:41:17 +0000

Hi Dirk (and any other Thunderbird users with this problem),

On 12/14/18 10:09 AM, Dirk Zimoch wrote:
> For a while now (ca Nov 11) all Tech Talk mails show up with the same
> "From" in my mail client (Thunderbird).
> 
> I see that the From field is now something like
> From: Dirk Zimoch via Tech-talk <[email protected]>
> 
> Unfortunately the mail client seems to try to be clever and looks up the
> mail address "[email protected]" in the address boot and then
> replaces the original string, e.g. "Dirk Zimoch via Tech-talk", with the
> address book entry, e.g. "TechTalk". Thus the original sender becomes
> invisible, which is a bit inconvenient.

I had exactly the same problem, but you can turn that off in your
Thunderbird contacts. Right-click on one of those From headers and
select Edit Contact (should bring up tech-talk) then click the Edit
Details button. Underneath the "Display" input-box is a check-bock
"Always prefer display name over message header" which you almost
certainly have checked; just uncheck this and the From field will show
the original string again.

> Would it be a problem to change back From to the original sender and
> instead put "Tech-talk <[email protected]>" into Reply-To?

Unfortunately that setting is no longer compatible with modern email
protocols, in particular many of our users organizations (including all
US-DOE labs now) publish records that say which servers can send emails
from that organization, and for most of them mailman.aps.anl.gov is not
a legitimate sender of emails with their From: address. Messages from
tech-talk were thus being marked as Spam for many readers.

There's a series of easy-reading descriptions of the SPF, DKIM and DMARC
protocols starting at
https://blog.returnpath.com/how-to-explain-spf-in-plain-english/ if
anyone is interested in the details.

HTH,

- Andrew

-- 
Arguing for surveillance because you have nothing to hide is no
different than making the claim, "I don't care about freedom of
speech because I have nothing to say." -- Edward Snowdon

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System