If you receive unsolicited e-mail with one of UAB's Lilith(s) on the To:/From: lines, here is why...

ANSWER / REASON:

lilith and lilith2 add an @their-own-name to the To: or From: lines (which are actually part of the message itself as far as SMTP is concerned) when a message comes in without them. It is against Internet standards to send anything without a valid domain on the To: and From: So the lilith software adds her own name to comply with Internet standards.

For an example, if someone puts just plain Undisclosed Recipients (which is still fairly common) on the To: line of a message you will see it as To: Undisclosed@lilith.dpo.uab.edu, Recipients@lilith.dpo.uab.edu

These days it seems even more common for someone to have Jennifer (or something without an @domainname) on the From: line which you would see as From: jennifer@lilith.dpo.uab.edu Some spammers do this deliberately even though a lot of mail servers will not deliver it.

We follow the old traditional rule when what became the Internet began:
Be liberal in what you accept.
Be conservative in what you send.

We accept some things that are not standards compliant because you might want them. But our servers do not send on anything without making it compliant first. Does that make any sense?