Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!ucsd!ucbvax!decwrl!reid
From: reid@decwrl.dec.com (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: an example of why I don't believe in automatic routing
Message-ID: <676@bacchus.DEC.COM>
Date: 3 Aug 88 05:33:07 GMT
Reply-To: reid@decwrl.UUCP (Brian Reid)
Organization: DEC Western Research
Lines: 14


This evening, after weeks of behaving itself, decwrl's pathalias database
told me that the best route to mcvax from here is 

sun!daver!altnet!altmail!altger!unido!mcvax!%s

This is completely preposterous. If my MTA started routing mail along paths
like this I would newfs it and start using the telephone. I'm sure that if I
take the trouble to go look (I probably won't) I'll find that according to
the current pathalias data this really *is* the best path from decwrl to
mcvax. It's just that pathalias and I have different ideas of what
constitutes "best". Remember, folks, pathalias believes exactly what you tell
it.

Until problems like this stop happening, MTA's should not do routing.