Hello,
>>David Lang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
>>The e-mail system was developed in the days when reliable permanent
>>connections were the exception rather then the rule. As a result the
>>e-mail system was designed for any mail server to accept mail and attempt
>>to deliver it to the destination. The idea being that hop by hop it would
>>get closer until it reached the destination. Spammers are now taking
>
>This is not correct. TCP was just as reliable in the early days of the
>Internet as it is today. Most mail in those days was sent to its final
>destination in a single client/server session just as it is today.
>There was not a lot of hop-by-hop mail delivery.
Actually, David's original assertion is indeed correct. The issue here has
nothing to do with the reliability of TCP then vs now, but rather the state
of email in general at the time (early 1980's). During this time, UUCP and
the BitNET were very prominant, as well as other similar networks (CSNET,
Fido, etc). The idea of "getting mail hop by hop to it's next nearer
destination" was very much in the minds of most email developers at the
time. Even in the case of destinations that were on the Internet, there
were cases where due to network problems, a given site may not always be
visible - hence getting it a bit closer over the net makes a lot of sense.
>The RFC821 specification for SMTP simply did not contemplate SPAM
>mail. After all, in those days it was just one happy research
>community. Open relays were convenient, since if you wanted to deliver
>a mail message all you needed to do was find a host running SMTP and
>let it handle the mail routing for you.
Yes and no. While it is true that the original SMTP specification did not
contemplate SPAM (as well as several other developments), the Arpanet had
developed to the point where it was no longer simply a research community.
Other than the US military who were very active at the time (no surprise
here), there were several commercial companies on the net, as well as
several doing TCP related product development. Or at least that was what
the group I was working with at the time thought.... :-) :-)
Best Regards,
Tim Kehres
International Messaging Associates
http://www.ima.com
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