[news.admin] AT&T dropping third-party mail

karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger) (06/18/88)

In article <3095@palo-alto.DEC.COM> vixie@palo-alto.DEC.COM (Paul Vixie) writes:
>In article <1100@bellboy.UUCP> hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) writes:
># In article <585@cbnews.ATT.COM> mark@stargate.COM (Mark Horton) writes:
># > Mail into and out of AT&T through the "att" gateway will continue.
># > Comments?
># 
># Only if it is from an AT&T site, or whose final destination
># is an AT&T site (from what I understand). The question I must
># ask myself is, do I want a connection bad enough to pay for the
># phone costs of passing email to AT&T employees, for their benefit.

Exactly.  We occasionally need to pass things to and from AT&T from within
our company -- and will maintain a link for *locally (our machines) 
generated or terminated mail only* for just that purpose.

>There are actually going to be three separate 'att' machines in three
>different cities.  And mail sent x!att!y will work, even if x and y
>are both non-AT&T sites.  I think AT&T's plan is basically to disallow
>mail along x!att!another-att!yet-another-att!y, that is, they'd rather
>not have their internal network used for non-AT&T traffic.

I don't know.....  that was not the impression I got from reading the 
recent posting here which came from ihnp4.

Please, AT&T, correct me if I am wrong -- but I believe it was said that any
mail which did not either (1) originate or (2) terminate at an AT&T site
would be returned as undeliverable....

This is a *lot* different than what Paul has stated.....  If I understood
the posting correctly, any mail which was of a pass-through nature (regardless 
of the number of systems it passes through) would be returned.

Would anyone like to clarify this?  It would be most appreciated, as we (and
many others) are preparing to handle the converse of what we believe you've
said (ie: any mail originating or terminating at an AT&T site will be bounced 
by "outside AT&T" sites -- if you can't see it clear to handle our 
third-party email, we can't see it clear to handle yours).  There has even
been a public call for hacks or patches to sendmail and smail to do 
exactly that.

We'd like to be fair -- but in the absense of further word from AT&T we'll
have to assume what we believe to be the correct interpretation of their
earlier message.

--
Karl Denninger (ddsw1!karl) Data: (312) 566-8912, Voice: (312) 566-8910
Macro Computer Solutions, Inc.    "Quality solutions at a fair price"