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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!Rudy.Nedved@cmu-cs-a.ARPA
From: Rudy.Nedved@cmu-cs-a.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.mail.headers
Subject: Re: Columbia usage of internet domain
Message-ID: <2601@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 30-Oct-85 10:17:43 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.2601
Posted: Wed Oct 30 10:17:43 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Nov-85 02:07:16 EST
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
Lines: 25

Some significant points:

1) Yep, domain names are administrative and have nothing to do with
   networking. A name like CU20A.COLUMBAI.EDU does NOT mean it is on
   the ARPA Internet.

2) The BITNET RSCS mail files are nice but they are glorified fancy
   host tables. In the long run, some type of general gateway hack
   will have to be added or better yet an distributed database
   mechanism will be added since BITNET+Internet+UUCP+CSNET+MAILNET+etc.
   will be too much to keep updating and storing on every single
   BITNET site.

4) There is a domain transition going on so things are going to be
   rocky for a while. Some domains do not have sites listed in the old
   table, domain servers are inconsitent, confused and unreliable. Resolvers
   evaluate a name wrong and so forth. The problem with CU20A at
   the moment is that given you can not access it from the ARPA
   Internet, it should have an MF record for some host that will
   accept mail for CU20A. Also CCNet which is based on DECNet
   should probably have a CLASS of DN (DecNet) or something. Things
   are fuzzy. Hopefully when CHAOSNet and CSNET gets into the
   domain system, CCNet and BITNET will follow...

-Rudy