Subject: Re: [Asrg] Ban the bounce; improved challenge-response systems

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 08:42:04 -0700

I think the problem here is that some people think there is some sort of
obligation to remain tie to the lowest common denominator.

99% of internet users cannot send to UUCP. I see this a geek-tweak rather
than a serious constraint.

I find the third world argument unconvicing. I seriously doubt the nigerians
are sending their stuff over uucp. If uucp is no longer viable people wil
soon find a alternative. 

We should make smtp work as well as it can. I seriously doubt that will
affect gateways to obsolete protocols, if it does, deal with it.

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Jim Youll
Sent:	Sun Apr 06 08:04:59 2003
To:	Chuq Von Rospach; Hallam-Baker, Phillip
Cc:	'J C Lawrence'; [email-masked]; ASRG list
Subject:	Re: [Asrg] Ban the bounce; improved challenge-response
systems

At 7:34 -0700 4/6/03, Chuq Von Rospach wrote:
>On Sunday, April 6, 2003, at 05:30  AM, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
>>I think twenty years is more than enough time to phase out
>>an obsolete protocol. If stopping spam breaks UUCP then UUCP
>>breaks, don't give it a second's thought, that is a problem
>>for the UUCP diehards to solve, on their own.
>>
>
>Not every place is like that place you're at.
>
>UUCP still has a fair usage in places in Europe, especially sweden. 
>I deal with people there who are on uucp links all of the time. It 
>also still has usage in less developed countries, and in places with 
>really limited phone systems or none at all (scientific research 
>groups using uucp over satphone, for instance).
>
>It's rather easy to tell someoe else to change all of their stuff, though.

just wondering aloud...

so UUCP is still in fair use but clearly a minority.

Is it really a good idea that all mail products should have to handle 
it - and design anti-spam or other things around it?

Might it make more sense from a design standpoint for UUCP endpoints 
to be gatewayed through something that talks current protocols on one 
side, and UUCP on the other? I have to think that most everyone who's 
using UUCP could probably find a host (probably owns one, perhaps at 
the home research institution that they contact via the satphone) 
that would serve this function. Even in the developing world, there 
are linkages to supportive "other" institutions that could help in a 
transitional time.

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---

From: Chuq Von Rospach <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 11:00:29 -0700

> obligation to remain tie to the lowest common denominator.

I think the problem here is that some people think that anything that's 
not convenient to their preferrred solution can be tossed or ignored.

And maybe it can be. But everything that breaks the status quo is a 
thing that complicates implementation and requires people be convinced 
to accept it. The more complicated the changes, the harder to implement 
and the longer it'll take. The more people you have to convince, the 
longer it'll take. Lose enough of the population that refuses to buy 
in, and it fails.

I just keep getting convinced that people keep building solutions that 
don't really have much experience outside their own server systems, 
haven't spent much time dealing with international environments, or 
generally just don't have a good clue what the global infrastructure 
is, just the local. And that's fatal to a plan that has to work 
globally to work.

(I don't pretend to be expert in these areas, either, but it seems I 
spend a lot more time dealing with people in global environments that 
many of the folks here... and that worries me)

---

From: J C Lawrence <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 2003 13:20:13 -0700

On Sun, 6 Apr 2003 08:42:04 -0700  
Phillip Hallam-Baker <Hallam-Baker> wrote:

> 99% of internet users cannot send to UUCP. I see this a geek-tweak
> rather than a serious constraint.

Actually, this is false.  You, today, using MS Outlook, can email those
UUCP users and never notice the difference.  So can I, and so can every
other member of this list.  The days of bang paths being exposed as a
fundamental aspect of mail addressing are long dead.  

Today you mail to a standard user@domain address.  The fact that the
primary MX for that domain then bundles your mail into UUCP packets and
transports them (occasionally via several hops) to a UUCP connected box
for final deliver, and that mail takes the same route in reverse can be
(and often is) entirely hidden from you unless you start examining the
headers in detail.

> I find the third world argument unconvicing. I seriously doubt the
> nigerians are sending their stuff over uucp. 

I can't comment on Nigeria in particular, but large parts of the Africa
(Egypt, Congo, Kenya, Gabon, and Tanzania that I know of directly), much
of the East Indies, Eastern Russia, Sweden, Finland, and various smaller
Pacific and Atlantic island nations are hung off UUCP links.

If anything, this number (in terms of human population) will only
increase as the 'net becomes more prevalent in such parts of the world.

> If uucp is no longer viable people wil soon find a alternative.

Note: Many of those same people web-browse via HTTP-GET over email over
UUCP.  Connected protocols are not an option for them.  They are
explicitly and necessarily disconnected and must rely on
packet-forwarding solutions.

> We should make smtp work as well as it can. 

Agreed.  But that goes for the payload specifics as well (RFC 2822).

> I seriously doubt that will affect gateways to obsolete protocols, if
> it does, deal with it.

If it turns out that the only way out is to sacrifice things like UUCP,
so be it, but there's no reason to make that decision now, or to
predeclare that UUCP is on the will-sacrifice-at-first-opportunity list.

-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
[email-masked]               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
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From: Jim Youll <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 16:22:15 -0400

So this one little issue has popped out over and again, in this thread.

Sweden!

?!

What's up with Sweden?

---

From: J C Lawrence <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 2003 13:24:33 -0700

On Sun, 6 Apr 2003 16:22:15 -0400 
Jim Youll <[email-masked]> wrote:

> So this one little issue has popped out over and again, in this
> thread.  Sweden!

> What's up with Sweden?

Sweden, like Finland and Norway, have extensively poorly connected
populations.  The land is rugged, weather is bad, and its damned
difficult to build anything electronic that can reliably keep them
connected for non-obscene costs -- especially for a primarily rural
population