Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 5/22/85; site cbosgd.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: Name space explosion -- first tremors
Message-ID: <1343@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 28-Jul-85 00:21:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.1343
Posted: Sun Jul 28 00:21:24 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Jul-85 07:08:46 EDT
References: <568@decuac.UUCP> <531@down.FUN> <570@decuac.UUCP> <537@down.FUN> <9390@ucbvax.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh
Lines: 24

In article <9390@ucbvax.ARPA> kre@ucbvax.ARPA (Robert Elz) writes:
>I'm not sure
>how anyone could explain to users that the unrelated actions
>of some site on the other side of the world, on some unrelated
>network (Peter's scheme has lots of networks rolled into it)
>has suddenly invalidated what used to be a perfectly good address.

Very true.  What's a little scary is that MHS (that's the new international
standard for electronic mail which is about to be thrust upon us
by all the common carriers) has this same drawback.

>Some kind of naming authority is essential if this network
>is to continue to grow and be useful.  That's exactly what
>a domain is (and a domain is no more than that).

Well, sort of.  Actually, a domain has implicitly associated with
it a naming space, with a set of syntax rules.  An ARPA domain has
rules like "no two children of the same parent in the domain tree
can have the same name" and "names are made up of letters, digits,
and hyphens, and upper/lower case isn't significant."  An MHS domain
(yes, MHS has domains too) has rules like "names are X.409 Printable
Strings (made up of nearly any printing characters) and addresses
may need extra attributes, like the Zip Code of the recipient, to
disambiguate among possibly identical children of a parent in the tree."