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In article <1255@mtunq.ATT.COM> psrc@mtunq.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm) writes:
>In article <1990Aug19.205508.16479@mthvax.cs.miami.edu> wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) writes:
>>Does anyone else out there have a hard time sending replies to att-ites?
>>	1) Article is posted from "bell@cbnews.att.com (alex.g.bell)"
>>	2) I attempt to reply to that address
>>	3) My reply bounces, for various reasons, at cbnews.
>>All this comes about because, of course, Alex does not REALLY have an
>>account on cbnews, but instead on another att machine that lets cbnews
>>do all the postings.
>I'm surprised the reply doesn't work.  Another way to answer Alex would
>be to send e-mail to alex.g.bell@att.com;

Listen..  by putting out e-mail headers with addresses like that
you are claiming to be able to handle mail addressed like so.
ergo-cum-quid cbnews.att.com is *BROKEN*

Saying that doing something unintuitive and specific-to-att.com is
a very bad way to handle the situation.  Mr. Lesher described the
normal way in which people try to reply to mail.  What he tried
doing is the way it is supposed to work.  This is why I say that
cbnews.att.com is *BROKEN*.


> Bell's name would be looked
>up in the AT&T internal e-mail directory, and forwarded to the e-mail
>address listed there.  

That's fine.  That's wonderful.  I don't like that attempt to
toss all those people into one pool of names, but AT&T can
do as they wish.  Past experience with host names is that it
is a very bad thing to try to use just one pool of names -- that
seperating them into hierarchies is much better.  My feeling is
that the same holds true for the local-part of e-mail addresses.

If the header were to read "From: alex.g.bell@att.com" then
it would work.



>(It's impossible to look up information in the
>directory and have the result sent outside of AT&T; that's both a
>security and a privacy feature.)  The middle name or initial is
>optional.

I'm curious.. assumably your directory will eventually be
attached to an X.500 server.  One of the features which will
likely be in X.400 user-agents is a hook into X.500 directories
so that if you don't know specific details about somebody
you can go querying around to get them so you can fill in
attributes in the X.400 headers.

With the sort of policy you claim AT&T has, how will this work?
-- 
<- David Herron, an MMDF weenie, <david@twg.com>
<- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <david@ms.uky.edu>
<-
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