🚀 go-pugleaf

What has come before:  David S. Herron (david@twg.com, who posts from
gollum.twg.com [which is sort of relevant to this discussion, if you
think about it]) complained that replies to AT&T users posting from the
cbnews systems didn't work.  Both Mark Horton (mark@cbfsa.att.com, who
posts from cbnewsu.att.com) and I (psrc@mtunq.att.com, who used to post
from there, but now post from cbnewsl.att.com) recommended, as a
workaround, sending e-mail to a human name at the logical AT&T gateway
(e.g., alex.g.bell@att.com).

The real solution is to get cbnews messages correctly forwarded.  They
work in general; Mark and the other members of the AT&T newnews team
are working on fixing the remaining cases.  My personal workaround is
to add a Reply-To: line to my articles.

In article <7801@gollum.twg.com>, david@twg.com (David S. Herron) writes:
> If the header were to read "From: alex.g.bell@att.com" then it would
> work.

In article <1990Aug30.183437.11916@cbnewsu.att.com> mark@cbnewsu.att.com (Mark Horton) writes:
> Excellent idea, but it runs into trouble for all the John Smith's
> or David Jones in a 200,000 person company.  We're looking into
> solutions for this, but we aren't there yet.

In article <7878@gollum.twg.com>, david@twg.com (David S. Herron) writes:
> er.. yeah..  And you run into the same trouble with the "attmail"
> service you're already running.  That there's only one pile of names
> and it's rather impossible to avoid collisions in a large enough
> pile of names.

Human name addressing is convenient . . . but it's not sufficient to
handle all cases.  If you send mail to attmail!john.smith, I think
you'll get a complaint that your mail was undeliverable, a list of all
the John Smith's, and your original message.  I assume something
similar works for john.smith@att.com.  In either case, e-mail from John
Smith should have a reasonably good From: line, with a "real" e-mail
address, not one based on human names.  (AT&T Mail will use a bangish
address, e.g., From: attmail!jqsmith; it doesn't support DNS addresses.
I've talked the the Appropriate People in AT&T Mail, and don't see DNS
support any time in the immediate future.)

> [Long question about X.500 queries over network in order to fill out
>  e-mail headers and the like]

Mark:
> Simple.  We will deliver mail, and even help fill out the form for
> a specific user.  What we don't do is let you browse the directory
> to accumulate a list of employees.

David:
> I read this as saying that particular non-AT&T people will have to be
> authorized in some way or another for particular queries and that you
> won't answer to open ended queries?

Darned tootin', and I hope it stays that way.  We *don't* want to give
Joe Random a list of every member of the technical staff, with his or
her title, address, phone number, and e-mail address.  I can always
tell when someone sells a (proprietary) AT&T directory to a headhunter
or a stock broker; the phones start ringing in alphabetical order.
It's a pain in the tush.  Human name addressing, fine; invitations for
harassment (or distraction from AT&T business) during working hours, no
thanks!

Paul S. R. Chisholm, AT&T Bell Laboratories
att!mtunq!psrc, psrc@mtunq.att.com, AT&T Mail !psrchisholm
I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind.