From: fenner@snobol.cs.psu.edu (Bill Fenner)
Subject: Re: Mixed format addresses
Organization: Penn State Computer Science
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 23:50:39 GMT

In article <1gg7eeINNfve@gaia.ucs.orst.edu> stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley) writes:
|In article <Bz4xxE.7M1@cs.psu.edu> fenner@postscript.cs.psu.edu (Bill Fenner) writes:
|>If you want to look like part of the Internet, then get a domain name.  If
|>you don't want to play by the (easy and free) rules, then don't complain
|>that the game's no fun.
|
|What easy and free rule says that UUCP sites have to look like part of
|the Internet?

If you want to send mail to and receive mail from the Internet, then you should
look like part of the Internet, or you should not be surprised when you can't
get mail back from the Internet.  This seems to me to be common sense.

|>It's not the data in the UUCP maps - 3 of
|>the 7 sites that I asked about their entries in d.Top responded.  Two
|>said that the entry was deprecated cruft (one of them said he barely
|>had any UUCP connections at all any more), 
|
|Guess whose responsibility it is for notifying the uucp mapping project
|that a map file is wrong? No, it isn't the uucp mapping project's. It is
|the site who believes his entry in the file is "deprecated cruft".

I didn't suggest that it was the uucp mapping project's fault for not knowing
that the entries were wrong.  I just said that the entries were wrong.  Do
you really think it's a good idea to suggest using a source where nearly
half the data is verifiably wrong?

|>and one said they would route mail if I was a customer.
|
|The same one who will route mail even if you aren't a customer.

This is irrelevant.  Just beacuse they have not installed filters yet doesn't
mean that they won't.  Their policy is, apparently, that they won't route
mail for non-customers, so if you're depending on breaking that policy, don't
be surprised when your mail all disappears one day.

|I can be in charge of my "little section" of the DNS? Really? From a
|UUCP site? Just what protocol do YOU know of that will allow a UUCP
|site to change the DNS records for its MX site? 

mail hostmaster@otc2.psu.edu
Hey, Steve, would you please add an MX record for:
foo.redbeard.com.	IN	MX	20 cs.psu.edu.

Thanks,
  Bill
^D

|With the DNS, it is easy to poke incorrect data into the database and
|*poof* EVERYONE is using bogus data. 

For the part of the DNS that you are responsible for.  Big deal.  I can
put a connection to uunet, with 0 cost, in my map entry, and then rm
/usr/spool/uucp/uunet/* every night.  Which would screw more people up?
For me to say "bogus.redbeard.com. IN MX 20 zing.zang.no.such.host." or
"hogbbs uunet(0)"?

|>You mean the DNS.  Why not?  That was the original design goal.
|
|For someone who is adamant that nothing in the UUCP maps could possibly
|apply to Internet sites, why this sudden compulsion that MX records
|must apply to UUCP sites?

I didn't say anything about MX records applying to UUCP sites.  I said that
the original design goal of the DNS was that everyone would have a domain
name.  I also don't see the leap you took between saying that the UUCP maps
have nothing to do with Internet mail routing and that sites that are
contactable via UUCP should register in the DNS.  Those two statements are
orthogonal, I don't see why you think they're contradictory.

|>Using the DNS, I have no need to store any information about anyone on
|>my computer; I can just look it up.  
|
|And just, pray tell, if you keep no information about anyone in your
|computer, who do you talk to to look it up?

Ever so sorry; I need to store one IP address of a name server.

|Or you keep a <30 character name of a site that will gateway traffic.
|That sounds most desirable.

Sure, except that there's no good way of finding such a site.

|Passing
|mail to a gateway requires knowing one address. The latter sure seems to
|be much simpler than trying to get every UUCP in the world to register
|in a voluntary database. It is, however, less simple that expecting them
|to.

But there's no good way to find such a gateway.  The UUCP maps are no good;
even if that is the intention of the data in d.Top, the data is bogus.

  Bill