scs@itivax.iti.org (Steve C. Simmons) (06/30/89)
amanda@intercon.UUCP (Amanda Walker) writes: >In article <1930@lokkur.UUCP>, scs@lokkur.UUCP (Steve Simmons) writes: > [[description of my wifes email address claiming to be aa.va.gov]] >It's bogus. One thing about claiming to have a domain is that you must >have name servers registered for that domain. If the nameserver for .GOV >doesn't know about VA.GOV, it doesn't exist. So I would presume. But here we have a case of a site which looks like an internet address, feels like an internet address, but is *not* an internet address. Let's say that I now set up my home machine to talk to my wifes work machine. Thus the route ...!lokkur.dexter.mi.us!aa.va.gov!ruth_simmons is correct (since aa.va.gov is a *host name*, not an address), and shortcircuiting it to ruth_simmons@aa.va.gov will never deliver. I'm curious -- is the use of aa.va.gov (or any name that looks like a valid address) as a hostname prohibited? By law? By regulation? By custom? Is there a similar set of laws/regulations that prohibit two cities in the same state from having the same name? -- Steve Simmons scs@vax3.iti.org Industrial Technology Institute Ann Arbor, MI. "Velveeta -- the Spam of Cheeses!" -- Uncle Bonsai
matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Matt Crawford) (07/01/89)
In article <1890@itivax.iti.org>, scs@itivax (Steve C. Simmons) writes:
) I'm curious -- is the use of aa.va.gov (or any name that looks like
) a valid address) as a hostname prohibited? By law? By regulation?
) By custom?
By the fact that I and a couple of hundred pals will come over and throw
sand in your disk drive and let the smoke out of your CPU.
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Matt Crawford matt@oddjob.uchicago.eduamanda@intercon.uu.net (Amanda Walker) (07/01/89)
In article <4197@tank.uchicago.edu>, matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Matt Crawford) writes: > By the fact that I and a couple of hundred pals will come over and throw > sand in your disk drive and let the smoke out of your CPU. Grin. That sounds about right. When dealing with addressing, just because it's "legal" doesn't make it reasonable. For example, sending U.S. mail from almost anywhere in the U.S. to Beijing, China is almost impossible if you include the Chinese postal code. Why? Because no matter how big you right "CHINA" or "P.R.C." on the envelope, the Beijing postal code is five digits that look just like the ZIP code for a small town in the midwest, and your mail will go there. If you have a site that looks & smells like an Internet host, and wants to both use a name that looks like an Internet domain name and talk to machines that are actually on the Internet, it had better play by the Internet's rules. This isn't a law, it's just that if you don't, your mail won't get through, as you have discovered. -- Amanda Walker <amanda@intercon.uu.net> InterCon Systems Corporation -- "Those preachers are right--there's more in these songs than meets the eye..." --Arlo Guthrie