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From: Stef@NRTC.NORTHROP.COM (Einar Stefferud)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400
Subject: Re: Numerical surnames??
Message-ID: <1721.619771390@nma.com>
Date: 22 Aug 89 06:43:10 GMT
References: <441620@QZCOM>
Reply-To: Stef@nrtc.northrop.com
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 12
Approved: post-x400@tis.llnl.gov

Hello Jacob -- et al  --

I cannot see any special reason to avoid using digit strings for names,
but I can see security reasons for not allowing the use of "internal
mailbox numbers" for surnames.  In brief, I would suggest not using any
simply related numbers from internals of your system as published names
of any kind.  It just makes breaking in that much easier if someone
knows what they are looking for.  Better to have all names be mapped by
internal tables to their real internal mailboxes.  This is especially so
for secure mail.  Even though you might like assume that you can trust
all members of a secure community, you surely know that you cannot trust
such assumptions.  Best...\Stef