Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!lear From: lear@NET.BIO.NET (Eliot Lear) Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc Subject: Re: sigh (was Re: Short-circuiting a route) Message-ID: Date: 8 Jul 89 09:53:23 GMT References: <1061@aber-cs.UUCP> Organization: Natl Computer Resource for Mol. Biology Lines: 38 BIONET does fairly heavy mailing to the UK system, and I have never had a problem short circuiting a .UK path. I currently do not short circuit for .JANET, but then very few people are sending out .JANET these days anyway, and I had assumed it was going the way of .CSNET, which died some time early last year. There are two instances that short circuiting is a lose: [1] When the domain isn't real. Solution: don't short circuit to unreal domains. Either keep a list of top level domains, or hack the source. I do the latter, and have never had a complaint. [2] When the forwarder reintroduces the message into the system with the same domain name. This is the far more complicated scenerio. Greg Woods and I went several rounds of mail on this one, and there can be no resolution without [a] some fairly hefty processing, and [b] coordination of a large group of system administrators [sort of like a herd of cats]. The issue is with [2]. Bear in mind that because I am an Internet site, if someone is going to be a forwarder and then forward the message through me, I might as well be the forwarder in the first place. I am willing to make an exception to that rule for Greg Woods, because his is a somewhat unique and existing situation. Greg, if you find a loop involving my site, please contact me and I will make appropriate changes. However, I still believe that it is the forwarder's responsibility to [1] get the mail to the destination host, and [2] gain the permission of any intermediaries that might be used. While the Internet does not really restrict UUCP addressing semantics, neither does anyone else. Therefore, I have no problem short circuiting a route. It is a matter of who will be second guessed - the sender or every system administrator between the sender and the destination. I choose the former, as I believe the latter is much more ``evil and rude,'' to quote various preachers of the routing gospel.