Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!pcg
From: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP (Piercarlo Grandi)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: sigh (was Re: Short-circuiting a route)
Summary: domain names are not reserved to the Internet...
Message-ID: <1061@aber-cs.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jul 89 11:07:06 GMT
Reply-To: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Organization: Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth
	(Disclaimer: my statements are purely personal)
Lines: 39

In article <1888@prune.bbn.com> rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) writes:
    
    >The Moral: don't short-circuit.
    
    Wrong.  The Moral:  don't put full domain names into email paths if
    they're going through the Internet and you don't want them short-circuited.
    Hack the path to be something like
    	noe!packet_radio!kg6kf_ampr_org!callsign!callsign

Ugh! Ugh! Pain... Fro two reasons: this is a horrible hack, and, and, let me
repeat my NHO, this is Internet parochialism. There is nobody that has ever
said that domain names are restricted to the Internet. As one regrettable
example, the UK NRS uses things that looks suspiciously like Internet domain
names, with a reverse order, administered by central authority. The rest of
EUnet, a (mostly) UUCP network, also uses domain names (internet style, btw),
with aanother central authority (well, almost).
    
    >I'd better say it again, several times, since people always mix this up:
    >	if you don't like the paths people use, change the source mailers
    
    If you shoot mail into the Internet with a fully-qualified domain name
    in the address -- yes, Paul, even if it's in the Path line -- than you
    should expect people to follow it.

But damnable Internet sites should NOT expect domain-style names to be
Internet names at all, as anybody can write a.b.c! And unfortunately...
    
    UUCP host names don't come with an enforceable central naming authority,
    but domain names do.  If you don't want to use them, CHANGE YOUR GATEWAY
    CODE!

...no gateway code can cope with this, because there is NO way an Internet
gateway can transform a non internet name (domainized or not) into an
Internet one all of the time, simply because it does not have MX records or
maps for all the funny domains out there.
-- 
Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi           | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth        | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk