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From: tcp-ip@ucbvax.ARPA
Newsgroups: fa.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Interactive traffic punishment via MILNET?
Message-ID: <9847@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 09:02:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.9847
Posted: Mon Aug 12 09:02:17 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 20:57:54 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.ARPA
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 28

From: Charles Hedrick 

To complicate things, the host administrators often don't know that
much about how their software works.  When somebody posts a message
on the net saying that some horrible thing is causing some inconceivable
result, I have no way of knowing whether any of my hosts are contributing.
I run TOPS-20, Unix, and Eunice TCP's, and I do not know the details
of any of the TCP implementations.  (With Eunice I do not even have
access to the source.)  If you sent me a patch and told me to install
it, I would, but if you asked me whether my retransmission gizmo was
frabulating the gateway matter-antimatter mix, I would have no way
to respond.  I'm not sure quite what you can do about this, but in 
some ways it may make your problem easier.  What you probably need
is one or two knowlegable sites for each OS.  Then you could download
fixes they develop to the rest of us.  You will also have to find a
stick big enough to get these fixes put into the next release from
the vendor.  Maybe DCA could arrange to have Norad point a few 
missles in the direction of .  One problem that is making this more
complex is that the natural experts on TOPS-20 TCP are ISI and BBN,
but their code has diverged from the code supported by DEC and used
by the less sophisticated sites such as ourselves.  This is an area that
seems particularly amenable to the use of stategic weaponry.  Whether
the missles should be pointed at Marlboro or Cambridge and California is
a decision I would be happy to leave up to you.  (There are some
unpleasant politics hiding behind the surface here, which I am going to
avoid talking about in public, at least at the moment.)
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