OBERST%EDUCOM.MAILNET@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (02/17/84)
I've seen a lot of these type of addresses recently. ...
Received: from SU-SCORE by SRI-CSL via DDN; 16 Feb 84 13:47:37-PST
from MIT-MULTICS.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Thu 16 Feb 84 13:10:42-PST
from QZCOM.MAILNET by MIT-MULTICS.ARPA with Mailnet id <2623256738786884@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA>; 16 Feb 1984 13:25:38 est
Date: 15 Feb 84 01:46 +0100
From: KPJ_Jaakkola_QZ@QZCOM
The message presented came from the QZ Computing Centre in Stockholm. If
"these type of addresses" refers to the use of underscores in the
local-part of the mailbox, they are being generated by QZ in place of
blanks, since MIT-MULTICS (which relays QZ's messages to a number of
MAILNET and other sites) had not been able to properly handle quoted
strings in SMTP paths. For consistency, they made both the SMTP and the
822-header local-parts translate blanks to underscores. In any case
the @ is the delimiter separating local-part ('user-name') and domain
('host').
As for the "(Text 41915)-------------------------", QZ's local mail system
is actually a conferencing system, which associates a numeric ID with all
'text'--as opposed to messages which can contain text(s)--and thus tags each
text with the offending 'breath.' QZ converts their 'headers' into RFC822
format in messages that get sent out, but since the Text ID can refer to
part(s) of the message they decided to keep it in the text/message-body part
of the message. Apologies to Xerox for having been named as co-polluters.
Some Background:
MAILNET uses the Phonenet strategy of autocall modems over phone lines
(and outbound Telenet/TYMNET) to connect to remote hosts for the pick-up and
delivery of electronic mail. MIT-MULTICS is the 'hub', and there are currently
15 universities so connected (including the U of Stockholm's QZ). We have a
gateway under development to BITNET and several universities accept and forward
mail to/from other networks that they are connected to. For telephone dial-up
sites we run the mmdf link-level protocol (Phonenet's) and X.25 as llp for most
of the Telenet sites. We have adopted to use SMTP for mail transfer and
attempt to use RFC822 for message format.
We have attempted to act as if DOMAINS existed, but use the % routing
convention whenever sites send messages to non-MAILNET sites. Thus most
sites append '.MAILNET' to their site-name, but we encourage/require routing
information for messages that go beyond MAILNET sites. (Thus in this message,
the OBERST%EDUCOM.MAILNET@MIT-MULTICS should allow ARPA readers to reply
in the absence of a MAILNET domain name-server). There has been reluctance
in some quarters to implementing temporary hacks (like %'s) with the result
that most sites have half-implemented temporary hacks.
I have followed the domain/reverse-path/RFC733-still-lives-on-with-%
discussions on Header-People, and would be happy to hear other suggestions
about what to do while we wait for DOMAINS and name-servers to appear.
Dan Oberst
MAILNET Director