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)
Message-ID: <1062@aber-cs.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jul 89 12:02:55 GMT
Reply-To: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Organization: Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth
	(Disclaimer: my statements are purely personal)
Lines: 35

In article <656@kl-cs.UUCP> jonathan@cs.keele.ac.uk (Jonathan Knight) writes:
    
    As I understand it, the argument for re-routing and short-circuiting
    revolves around the idea that some people feel they know how
    to route mail better than the people who started the mail off.

Precisely. And they think that all domain names (saying Fully Qualified is a
bit risky as the domain name space is not really rooted...)  are Internet
ones about which they know everything so that they can second guess the
sender.
    
    Re-routing is very impolite, if I want my mail routed then I won't put a
    route on it, but if I do put a route on it then I'd be grateful if
    people would use it.  If the sys admins think that they can route mail
    better than I can, then declare yourselves as forwarders for those
    domains and I will gladly dump my mail on you for you to route.

Agreed. The net world is much stranger than most people believe, and the
golden net rule "I carry your traffic, you carry my traffic, no questions
asked", is the one that does keep it all together, and rerouting (as opposed
to routing, which is legitimate, when the sender gives an underspecified
route, like a@b) whether wanton or supposedly justified by supposedly all
Internet registered domain names violates it. That's why people feel
strongly about it.

	(note: the golden rule of course has one limit: money, i.e. balanced
	expense. Everybody praises backbone sites that forward more traffic
	than they generate, as anybody dislikes the free riders that try to
	do the opposite. Thank goodness the former are many and generous).

Thank you for your arguments supporting this.
-- 
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