Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site hou3c.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!hou3c!MRC@SU-SCORE.ARPA
From: MRC@SU-SCORE.ARPA (Mark Crispin)
Newsgroups: net.mail.headers
Subject: Re: Bogus "Arpanet hosts"
Message-ID: <337@hou3c.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Mar-84 00:22:48 EST
Article-I.D.: hou3c.337
Posted: Mon Mar  5 00:22:48 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 29-Feb-84 14:37:08 EST
Sender: ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist)
Lines: 29
To: Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Cc: Header-People@MIT-MC.ARPA
In-Reply-To: Message from "Bruce Hamilton " of Mon 27 Feb 84 20:05:41-PST
Postal-Address: 725 Mariposa Ave. #103; Mountain View, CA 94041
Phone: (415) 497-1407 (Stanford); (415) 968-1052 (residence)

Bruce -

     The TOPS-20 mailer, by deliberate design, does not perform any
relay services beyond that of a bridge.  CMU and Columbia both run
this software (although your example involved CMU-CS-PT, a Unix
system).  Unlike the UUCP world, I consider store-and-forward relaying
and relative addressing to be temporary measures pending the adoption
of a universal standard for electronic mail addressing.  It's too bad
that so many people confuse "where" the person is with the "way to get
there."

     I also have substantial reservations about the entire philsophy
of header-munging.  All too often I have seen my message headers
transmogrified into invalid headers by a well-meaning, but incorrect,
header modifier.  Several delivery problems, especially in the early
days of SMTP, proved to be undebuggable because a header modifier
succeeded in destroying the information needed to figure out what
happened.  Worse is the habit of MMDF and certain other header modifiers
to make a message header "cute" by applying certain rules of case
modification; I'm really tired of seeing crap such as "Mit-Xx", "Su-Ai",
or - the worst insult of all - "Mrc".

     I feel that a host using the services of a bridge should be willing
to generate a message header that is valid at the other side of the
bridge.  It isn't difficult to do, especially if both sides of the bridge
are willing to recognize Internet addresses.

-- Mark --
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