Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-sem.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!cmcl2!seismo!brl-tgr!brl-sem!ron
From: ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>)
Newsgroups: net.news.adm,net.news
Subject: Re: Saving the net
Message-ID: <539@brl-sem.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 18-Nov-85 13:00:25 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-sem.539
Posted: Mon Nov 18 13:00:25 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Nov-85 00:58:09 EST
References: <10940@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <851@vortex.UUCP> <674@neuro1.UUCP>
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 48
Xref: watmath net.news.adm:432 net.news:4384

> Lauren, I (and I think the rest of the non-ARPA sites) would love to
> see a copy of these rules. Can you point to the appropriate RFC or
> whatever that we can get from SRI-NIC? Or, better yet, can you
> cite (i.e. quote) these rules right here in net.news (yes, this
> is net.news.adm, but follow-ups are pointed at net.news).
> This information isn't restricted, is it?
> 
There is a statement about the official use of the ARPANET that is
very broad (fortunately) which allows certain of the not quite official
content traffic that exists on ARPANET.  It's in my manual in my office
so I can't quote it, but it really doesn't quite make any difference.
ARPANET traffic is restricted to official government traffic and traffic
in support of the ARPANET charter.  Since ARPANET is an experiment in
networking, it could mean almost anything.  Many moderators prefer to
take a conservative view on what is allowed because they don't wish to
be bounced off the net (or as is more likely to happen, incur the rath
of their host sponsor and get kicked off the machine being used for
the mailing list).

> Or the arguement of appropriate use of ARPANET vs material on usenet,
> I must concur that many of the "flame-oriented" news groups are
> probably inappropriate. However, I do notice that most (if not
> all) the mod groups originate in ARPA-land. Given that, could the
> ARPANET be used to transport that group from backbone to backbone?

Not all mod groups are ARPA-originated, but it is pretty much the
case that all ARPA-originated lists are MOD lists.  This is because
of inadequacies in the old fa.* distribution lists. You can't use
ARPANET as a common carrier to transfer between two sites on the net
just to circumvent the phone charges.  It would be possible to provide
multiple insertion points into the USENET for traffic originating in
ARPA, but this requires a little more cooperation between the ARPA
sites. Erik Fair is actively working to accomplish this though.

> In fact, it is not clear to me that some sites do not ALREADY employ
> this method of distributing news via TCP-UUCP.

BRL-TGR, BRL-SEM, and NLM-MCS are USENET machines that have no UUCP on
them at all.  We obtain the traffic using some shell scripts and the
Berkeley RSH utility.  We can do this because it has been stated that
we should use DDN (thats what they call MILNET and it's connected networks,
commonly called ARPANET) rather than leased lines or even dial up modems.
Given two MILNET sites who wish to play backbone, they could get away with
using the MILNET as the transport medium.  The hard part is convincing a
government site that it is in their best interest to be a part of the
backbone.

-Ron