Xref: utzoo comp.mail.uucp:3143 comp.mail.misc:1919
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!stan!dce
From: dce@Solbourne.COM (David Elliott)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: rewriting FROM: lines
Message-ID: <1256@marvin.Solbourne.COM>
Date: 24 May 89 00:01:30 GMT
References: <31051@sri-unix.SRI.COM> <160@zebra.UUCP>
Reply-To: dce@Solbourne.com (David Elliott)
Followup-To: comp.mail.uucp
Organization: Solbourne Computer Inc., Longmont, Colorado
Lines: 41

In article <160@zebra.UUCP> vern@zebra.UUCP (Vernon C. Hoxie) writes:
>	Perhaps you can enlighten some of us who are not exactly in a
>"domain" as to the virtues of this style addressing.  First, my
...
> 	In your address, "jthomp@hemaneh.Central.Sun.COM", what are the
>meanings of the encryptions following the "@" sign? ..and of what concern
>are they to me so far from your organization.

Think about it this way:  When you send a physical (as in paper,
envelope, and stamp) letter, you don't tell the post office how to
deliver it.  When I send a letter home, I don't write on it "Send to
Denver, then to Atlanta, then to Raleigh, then to Chapel Hill, then to
125 Booth Rd", I just write down the final address, and the post office
figures out how to get it there.  Postal addresses are unique.

The same goes for a phone conversation.  I don't tell the phone company
how to route the call, I just dial a phone number and the system
automatically connects me.  Phone numbers are unique.

By using a domain address, you are effectively asking for the same type
of service that the post office and telephone company (I did say
"type", and not "level" ;-) provides.  Domain addresses are unique.

You don't really need to know what hemanth.Central.Sun.COM means any
more than you need to know where 125 Booth Rd. in Chapel Hill, NC is.
All you need to know is that on all of the network served by this type
of addressing, jthomp@hemanth.Central.Sun.COM is a unique mail address,
and that no correctly-working mail forwarder will confuse it with
another jthomp on some other machine.

The other advantage is that it hides changes from people who don't
really care about the topology of the network.  It means that I don't
have to know that to get to one of my friends in CA, I have to
say nbires!ncar!ames!mips!ultra!rmg, and can instead send directly
to rmg@ultra.com.  Either way it will get there now, but if one
of these sites dies, or if a pair quits talking to each other, I
don't have to worry.

-- 
David Elliott		dce@Solbourne.COM
			...!{boulder,nbires,sun}!stan!dce