Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 SMI; site sun.uucp
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sun!guy
From: guy@sun.uucp (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: net.mail,net.news.b
Subject: Re: Upper/lower case in addresses
Message-ID: <3272@sun.uucp>
Date: Sun, 23-Feb-86 02:02:52 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.3272
Posted: Sun Feb 23 02:02:52 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Feb-86 04:02:37 EST
References: <2240@phri.UUCP>
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 24
Xref: linus net.mail:1390 net.news.b:978

> ...I ran across the following in nj.general and happened to notice the
> strange capitalization of the domain names...
> 
> ...At the very least, I would think having your domain name written the
> same way every time it appeared in one message would be a good idea.
> 
> > From: ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig)
> > Message-ID: <4994@alice.uUCp>

The "From:" line is used, under some circumstances, to provide an address to
reply to.  The "Message-ID:", however, is used ONLY to provide a unique ID
to a message.  <4994@alice.NetNewsTurd> would be equally good, providing
theer was no other machine on USENET advertising itself as
"alice.NetNewsTurd".  According to RFC822, case is ignored in the "domain"
part of a mail address anyway.

I think Peter Honeyman's explanation is the most likely.  (BTL research has
shown amusing bits of disrespect for various other mail conventions; a
message from Dennis Ritchie with a full complement of header lines is quite
entertaining.)
-- 
	Guy Harris
	{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy
	guy@sun.arpa	(yes, really)