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List:       imap
Subject:    Re: Read Acknowledgement
From:       Adam Treister <treister () SUMEX-AIM ! Stanford ! EDU>
Date:       1992-10-06 18:46:28
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I happen to be in favor of read and delivery acks, and am planning on adding
request-read-ack and read-ack to Mailstrom.  I can't really see what skeletons
will come out of MY closets based on the time I read mail, tho I'd be interested
in hypothetical cases where this would be a issue.  And considering that any
self-respecting hacker can probably get at the contents of my mailbox, this is a
relatively minor breech of security. (IMHO)  And if it is, isn't timestamping
sent messages likewise invasive?

I am even tempted to take a hard line approach and not allow the user to read it
without acknowledging, but for now I'll put the switch in, and decide later if
I'll give an interface for setting/clearing it. 

My question:  Is there an accepted standard header that's used for this purpose,
or should I create a X-Read-Acknowledge, which would effectively mean that
Mailstrom users would only acknowledge mail to other Mailstrom users?

Maybe RSVP is a kinder and gentler approach, whereby the reader automatically
creates a reply with a timestamp and sufficient text to indicate that the
message has been read, but allows the reader to append a reply (or edit the text
or throw away the reply).  Until the feature becomes required, it really has no
teeth, as users can refuse to read the message, and go to a non-enforcing mailer
to read that message, so the soft approach may be best for now.  But a standard
header that allowed Delivery Ack, Read Ack, or RSVP would be nice in the next
822 revision.  I would assume X.400 includes this (what doesn't it include?)
What variations does it have?

------------------------------
Adam Treister
415-508-9349
treister@sumex.stanford.edu

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