DBrown.TSDC@HI-MULTICS.ARPA (02/17/84)
With respect, I disagree. My understanding of the domain/nameserver scheme is that Vortex's machine sends to a machine which knows about the domain "DEC", (hopefully almost anyone), and that machine, if it does not *itself* know how to reach the DEC net, passes it on to a host which it has listed in its' local name server as accepting responsability for mail to all of DECNET. That machine, presumably a DEC mail gateway, then has the responsability of forwarding (or refusing) the mail to the proper site in the proper country, obeying all the trans-border data-flow regulations then in force. So Lauren's machine (and my baby bun) need not know any explicit paths or mailing heuristics because of the "domain of responsability" design of the ARPA Internet. --dave (why should *i* understand DECNET?) brown