> > For example, I think that a good chunk of RFC 2124
> > ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2142.txt is elitist and WRONG.
> >
> > This is the one where they say you MUST have this email address, and
> > you
> > MUST have that email address.
> >
> > Basically it states that if you are an ISP you MUST have abuse@, ftp@,
> > hostmaster@, info@, marketing@, news@, noc@, postmaster@, sales@,
> > security@,
> > support@, usenet@, uucp@, webmaster@, and www@ <yourdomain>.
>
> Actually, what 2142 says is "if you have a service, you have to have
> the e-mail address(es) which are relevant".. If you don't Usenet, then
> you don't need usenet@, if you don't have FTP service, then you don't
> need ftp@, etc.
As I said, if you are an ISP.
> > 1) Welcome to the elitist English only club.
>
> To every international organization there has to be a standard
> language. The United Nations does not print its documents in each one
> of the hundreds and hundreds of different languages in the world, they
> have chosen three (French, English, and one other that I can't
> remember) that are the "standard" languages.
>
> If you fly a plane anywhere in the world, it doesn't matter, you speak
> english when you talk to the tower. You can be (as the anecdote goes) a
> German pilot flying a german plane for Lufthansa leaving Berlin, and
> you'll still talk to the tower in English, because that is the
> standardized language for air traffic communications.
>
> If I need to mail the abuse department of an African ISP, I shouldn't
> have to know what "abuse" is in Swahili. There needs to be a
> standardized communications path, and that's what 2142 provides.
The only reason why English is the accepted language for pilots and airports
is because the British trained most the pilots and ground personel.
This makes sense because of the danger involved, response time needed, and
other considerations that require real time voice communications.
The technoloy of the internet was baseline developed in the USA, but major
additions were made all over the world.
There is nothing in the net that I know of that will cause an airplane to
crash if someone can't email the "postmaster" without some added step of
finding out what the postmaster is called.
Yes, a standard is needed. However that standard does not need to be, "for
this service you MUST have this address," so on and so forth.
Every ISP qualifies for every service because their users will at some time
use every service. But to require an ISP to have all those addresses is
stupid.
Most ISPs will have one of two situations:
1) A clearing house system is used to pass the request on to the next
person in line for that type of issue.
2) An individual or very small group that is responsible for eveything.
So there is usually some back and forth about who to contact over what, OR
you always get the right individual or group no matter which you send to.
This makes the mandated ones either outdated or redundant depending on the
situation.
So for ISPs, there is no benifit for the required addresses, and only
limited detriment.
For non-ISPs who provide less services, most will not know what addresses
they need to provide and will make themselves in violation. Any standard
that promotes this is not well thought out.
In many cases, you would need to contact the ISP, and they in turn would
contact the customer. For larger companies they may even be their own ISP.
So again, there is no benifit to the standard. There is some strong
detriment.
All that is needed is a standard way to find addresses. Valid whois and DNS
information does that.
Using methods of finding the address also helps eliminate the problems that
inflexable addressing creates.
The people who fill out the assorted whois and DNS information should be
better informed and skilled as to standards and requirements. Now, this may
not be the case, but it is an appropreate place to promote harder standards.
Personally I don't think IPs should transport at core if their ARIN or
international cousin's records are not correct. Similar rules for doman
names' regestrar whois and top level would be great.
Heck, I think lame server results should be penalized!
These are core services to making the net run well. Every abuse of them
drags down the performance of the web.
> > 1) The WhoIs listed contacts should be reachable, which is what
> > they are
> > arguing with UUNet over.
> > 2) DSN ( <> ) mail should be accepted.
>
> Glad to see we agree on some things. :-)
>
> D
> (who really didn't intend to start a huge thread with my original
> message, honest)
Well, you posted to the wrong list if you did not want a discussion. Hehe.
--Eric
