[ale] Validating email addresses

[Christopher Fowler]

Is there a way other than communicating with a remote SMTP server to
validate an address?  Here is an example:

[cfowler at shuttle ~]$ telnet mx00-dom.earthlink.net 25
Trying 207.217.125.16...
Connected to mx00-dom.earthlink.net (207.217.125.16).
Escape character is '^]'.
220 meadowlark.mail.pas.earthlink.net EL___ ESMTP EarthLink Mail Service
Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:58:42 -0700 (PDT)
helo outpostsentinel.com
250 meadowlark.mail.pas.earthlink.net Hello outpostsentinel.com
[66.23.224.81], please to meet you
mail from:<cfowler at outpostsentinel.com>
250 <cfowler at outpostsentinel.com>... Sender ok
rcpt to:<0123456789 at outpostsentinel.com>
250 <0123456789 at outpostsentinel.com>... Recipient ok
vrfy
502 Command unrecognized "vrfy"
quit
221 meadowlark.mail.pas.earthlink.net closing connection


I'm the "catch all" for that domain.

I'm in the process of writing a program that will verify all email
addresses stored in a database.  The problem is that when I use the 
"0123456789@<domain>" email address _many_ of the servers are
responding with a '250' even though no address like that exists.

Is there another way to verify?