Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b,news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Database of all net sites
Message-ID: <3339@cbosgd.ATT.COM>
Date: Mon, 9-Feb-87 17:37:47 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.3339
Posted: Mon Feb  9 17:37:47 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Feb-87 06:23:33 EST
References: <110@catsim.catsim.UUCP> <7960@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh
Lines: 44
Keywords: netsites, Database
Xref: watmath news.admin:134 news.software.b:245 news.sysadmin:35

In article <7960@decwrl.DEC.COM> reid@decwrl.UUCP (Brian Reid) writes:
>There is currently a database of net sites posted in the newsgroup mod.map,
>but it is being phased out and there will not be any replacement database.
>Save this database--it will gradually become obsolete but it's the best you
>are going to get.

This is very misleading.  There are no plans to phase out the map being
posted to mod.map.

What is happening is that the emphasis is shifting from UUCP hosts to
organizational domains.  Thus, instead of having 20 entries for 20
UUCP machines that are all owned by Frobozz Inc, we'll have one domain
entry for Frobozz's domain, with information about the 1 or 2 gateway
machines into Frobozz, and sufficient routing information to get to
UUCP hosts beyond their gateway.  If you really want the name and phone
number of a particular system administrator of a particular internal
machine, you can call the contact person on the gateway and get it.

This shift is for some important reasons:

(1) The current map is just too big.  It's at 2MB and growing rapidly.
It costs a fortune to ship the whole thing around the net every month.

(2) The current map is too hard to keep up to date.  I get mail from
people who think that there is so much out of date information in the
map that they refuse to use it.  This problem only gets worse as the
map grows.  By concentrating on organizations instead of machines, we
reduce the problem to a more managable level.

(3) The internal details of a company are nobody's business but that
company.  AT&T in particular does not want it's internal list of system
administrators published to the outside; it considers that information
very proprietary, and I've been told to stop sending it out.

In December, I warned the net that these files (especially *.a.*)
would be going away, and that people should save copies if they really
want such information.  If you treasure lists of people that aren't any
of your business, you might as well save the whole map.  But there is
certainly no plan to make it harder to find a particular company by
looking at the map; in fact, this will be easier since domains are based
on organizations.

	Mark Horton
	Director, the UUCP Project