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From: jsq@im4u.UUCP (John Quarterman)
Newsgroups: net.mail.headers
Subject: Re: Non-domain host names in mail
Message-ID: <790@im4u.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 2-Mar-86 12:50:43 EST
Article-I.D.: im4u.790
Posted: Sun Mar  2 12:50:43 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Mar-86 03:14:42 EST
References: <1355@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: jsq@im4u.UUCP (John Quarterman)
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 20

A related problem:

Many people from IBM are convinced there is a host named IBM.ARPA on
the ARPA Internet.  They hand out business cards with USER@IBM.ARPA on
them.  Yet there is no such host.  IBM-SJ.ARPA has an alias IBM (not
IBM.ARPA) which some mailers that still use the static host table will
interpret as IBM.ARPA.  However, those of use who use nameservers find
no such name as IBM.ARPA, since non-domain-style nicknames haven't been
put in the nameserver databases.  Explaining this to people from IBM is
difficult.  Re-explaining it to local users every time they get one of
these IBM business cards is painful.

Perhaps IBM-SJ.ARPA could change its name to IBM.ARPA?

PS:  Despite appearances, not every IBM employee has an account on
IBM-SJ.ARPA.  That host is the gateway to IBM's VNET mail network.
Sometimes IBMers give out their addresses as USER%VNETHOST@IBM.ARPA.
-- 
John Quarterman, UUCP:  {gatech,harvard,ihnp4,pyramid,seismo}!ut-sally!im4u!jsq
ARPA Internet and CSNET:  jsq@im4u.UTEXAS.EDU, jsq@sally.UTEXAS.EDU