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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!down!honey
From: honey@down.FUN (Peter Honeyman)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: automatic address rewriting by smart gateways
Message-ID: <545@down.FUN>
Date: Mon, 29-Jul-85 22:32:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: down.545
Posted: Mon Jul 29 22:32:24 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 03:22:35 EDT
References: <568@decuac.UUCP> <531@down.FUN> <570@decuac.UUCP> <537@down.FUN> <9390@ucbvax.ARPA> <10077@Glacier.ARPA>
Organization: Princeton University, EECS
Lines: 66

robert and brian (and a cast of dozens?  ten?  just robert and brian?
brian?) cry out for universal addresses.  but at what price?  do i
really need or want an international namespace commission?  can i
afford it?  i doubt it -- the last time i checked, entry into the arpa
world cost $50,000 down and $50,000 a year, and that's if they'll have
you!  (have you designing killer cyborgs in space, that is.)

they go on to say that any system that contends with today's godawful
mess is impractical, dangerous, and generally a bad idea.  rather, they
propose, we should adopt a single set of rules, and anoint overpaid
bureaucrats to assure compliance.  (incidentally, this is also mandated
by rfc819.  maybe it's not incidental.)  fine, to whom to i write out
the check?  what's the delivery schedule?  and what do i do while i
await this holy grail?

mind you, i'm not arguing for or against domains (or any other
abstraction -- at least not in this paragraph).  i wish i had known
that my goals were impossible, impractical, dangerous, impotent,
flaccid, emasculated, menopausal, and generally bad before i built the
fun domain mailer.

picky stuff for robert:

yes, the fun mailer can be sabotaged by rogues giving me bad data.
name a piece of software that doesn't have this problem.  (consider,
e.g., ken thompson's famous trojan horse.)  nonetheless, wouldn't you
agree that mutual cooperation has worked pretty well so far?  and you
can't beat the price.

also, if you really believe that mark@cbosgd.att.uucp is the same as
uucp!att!cbosgd!mark, then we're in the same camp, aren't we?  i have
insisted all along that a "domain" is a pseudonym for a host that can
gateway to a specific set of hosts.  so let's call a spade a "spade"
and write attunix!cbosgd!mark (with the possible addition of a uucp
gateway).

vortex!registry claims to be a uucp naming authority; maybe someday
this will help me build better mailers.

picky stuff for brian:

i don't translate addresses manually, you luddite, that's what
computers were invented for.

who are these "techno-zealots" at the phone company?  (electronic
addresses please.)

finally, please stop confusing me with bimmler.

picky stuff for everyone:

a cogent point made (in passing) by pike and weinberger at the last
usenix ("the hideous name") is that what uucp routes are more than
routes, they're addresses.  i take that view and run with it:  given
the proper data, a uucp route maps into a graph traversal, specifying a
given host at least as precisely as any domainist's incantation.  (and
software that does just that is more than just a gleam in an
rfc-writer's eye.)  my major departure from rfc819 is the extension of
their graph model (undirected trees) to arbitrary directed graphs.
obviously any connected undirected graph can be viewed as a tree, but
the world is neither connected or undirected.  this fact can not be
wished away.

as for universal addresses, i give mine relative to glacier.  doesn't everyone?

	peter