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From: david@ukma.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Why @? (was NO NO NO NO NO, sort of)
Message-ID: <6888@g.ms.uky.edu>
Date: Thu, 9-Jul-87 16:22:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: g.6888
Posted: Thu Jul  9 16:22:27 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jul-87 01:53:57 EDT
References: <8120006@hpfclp.HP.COM> <599@nonvon.UUCP>
Reply-To: david@ms.uky.csnet (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack)
Organization: U of Kentucky, Mathematical Sciences
Lines: 29

In article <599@nonvon.UUCP> mc68020@nonvon.UUCP (root) writes:
>> 
>> The problem is you are assuming a "bangist" world.  The ARPANET (and now
>> the ARPA Internet) has been using "@" for a long time already and they are
>> officially sanctioned and supported by the Network Information Center.  
>> [ ... ]
>   OK!  Who and WHAT is the Network Information Center.  By what authority
>does this organization "sanction" anything?  I have been hearing references
>to NIC for about a year now.   I'd sure like to know who those Nazis are!

Why, by their *own* authority of course ... :-)

Seriously.  The arpanet is where the domainist stuff was developed.
The Network Information Center (better known as sri-nic.arpa or
nic.sri.com) is the people who did the work to organize the domains and
such.  (sure, there were technical people everywhere working on it, but
they did the political/administrative part of the organizing).  Their
name implies their function.  They keep all of the information about
the hosts and connectivity in the ARPA/Internet.

They directly administer the top-level domain names and the second
levels of the US domains (EDU, GOV, ORG, MIL, etc).

They get to do this because the DOD hired them to do it.
-- 
----- David Herron,  Local E-Mail Hack,  david@ms.uky.edu, david@ms.uky.csnet
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