loesch@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Carlo 'Lynx' v. Loesch) (05/22/90)
Indeed a multi-net electronic email-addresses directory could be of quite some importance especially to scientists. We already have 'finger' and similar services, but that wouldn't help us if we were just looking for someone of whom we only know the name and the nation or state he is from - i guess a lot of people know some others out there who probably have email-addresses but both sides do not know. What about a network directory then? I heard BITNET has something like this - were everyone on the network can subscribe to so that he can be reached the quickiest way. Could this be realized in some relay system, where a message is passed from server to server until a certain person is found, so a group of servers could keep up a local directory each, being this then a kind of telnet connection also othe services could be offered like dropping a note, like an answering machine, for people who look for you, a kind of 'gone' message. Also small conferences and dialogues could be handled through such a relay, in fact, if you need a protocol for all of this you can find one that might be suitable in comp.protocols.misc, it's the cafe conference protocol, a development of mine of course ;-) which could ... should be used also for this kind of services... However, there is no software using this protocol yet :-( ... get in touch with me if you want to write some, or if you do not like the protocol. Hope I did'nt bore you too much - Ciao, the *Lynx* +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Carlo "Lynx" v. Loesch is loesch @ lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.de | | Georgenstr. 142 or loesch % -"- @ unido.bitnet | .uucp | | D-8 Muenchen 40 or loesch % -"- @ relay.cs.net | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+