🚀 go-pugleaf

aarp03@UC780.UMD.EDU (Robin Duggar) writes:

>Could someone please tell me how to address e-mail intended for a student
>at the US Air Force Academy?  What is the specific domain name for students?
>How should the user name be formated?
>   
>I'd really appreciate this information.  My brother is a cadet at the USAFA,
>and he's a virtual computer illiterate (so he can't tell me how to send him
>mail via the net).

>Thanks,
>   Robin

You probably should have cross-posted this, instead of multiply posted
this to several newsgroups, but let me attempt to answer your question.

The answer (based on a friend who went to the Academy) is that there is
no way to send cadets E-mail.  Cadets who need computer accounts for
their coursework access editors and compilers through menu-driven
interfaces on several VAXen (no access of the shell allowed).  Any
further access with respect to special projects has to be justified in
triplicate, with the sponsorship of an instructor.

West Point is a bit more lenient, but student access is heavily
restricted with threats of severe punishment to anyone who steps out of
line (like ftp'ing files or telnetting to an Internet service).  As you
might imagine, all E-mail is closely monitored. (or at least this was
what a cadet told me when he explained why he wasn't permitted to
subscribe to a technical mailing list I recommended to him).

I've seen a few Annapolis midshipmen on the net, but not in any great
numbers.  Most of the posts from usna.navy.mil hosts seems to be faculty
and staff.

I'm not necessarily attacking this approach, considering the nature of
military training and the desire to keep the cadets pretty isolated and
focused on their training and schoolwork.  However, when my friend
graduated, he was given a post-graduate research position at the academy
(while waiting for pilot training).  It is impossible to send him E-mail
as all of the research machines he is on have SMTP (and connects to the
25 socket) disabled.  This borders on the ridiculous.

Hope this answers your question.

Paul W. Schleck

pschleck@unomaha.edu