Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.UUCP> (07/25/83)
Greetings. I'd like to second Mark's comments about not abusing the ARPA gateway, and add that my intention in my earlier message was not to encourage more OVERALL usage of the gateway, but to encourage more CORRECT usage of the gateway. I wear both ARPA and Usenet hats, and on the ARPA side I very frequently see many messages from Usenet people who have, through incorrect addressing, caused messages to arrive at incorrect ARPA destinations (usually in a "dead message" queue somewhere). Logically enough, the senders tend to keep sending those messages using different addresses in an attempt to get their messages through -- simply causing more traffic. I also get frequent requests from other ARPA people who are attempting to communicate with Usenet addresses but cannot since correct return addresses were not included in original messages. I have never thought it desirable to try keep a generally known fact as a "secret" -- it only results in rumors and (in this case) quite a bit of wasted efforts on the parts of persons on multiple networks. So I'm hoping that the dissemination of some accurate information on this topic will have resulted in overall more EFFECTIVE use of the gateway, and less intentional (and unintentional) abuse. Thanks much. --Lauren--