31–40 of 211 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You were not supposed to type it out, you looked it up using your X.500 directory.
All we need is an x.500 directory of all addresses in the world, which won't be abused by anyone at anytime!
>> SMTP "“didn’t win because it was ‘better,’” he argued, but “just because it was easier to implement." Yes - and this is actually really important! It's true of most of the important early internet technologies. It's the entire reason "internet" standards won over "telco" (in this case ITU) standards - the latter could only be deployed by big coordinated efforts, while internet standards let individual decentralize…
The critical part of that quote "Like a car with no brakes or seatbelts."
SMTP won because it was simpler, but it's probably good to look at why it was simpler. SMTP handled routing by piggybacking on DNS. When an email arrives the SMTP server looks at the domain part of the address, does a query, and then attempts transfer it to the results of that query. Very simple. And, it turns out, immensely scalable. You don't need to maintain any routing information unless you're overriding DNS for…
In the early 90s I implemented a gateway between Novell email and X.400. What amused me the most was X.400 specified an exclusive enumerated list of reasons why email couldn't be delivered, including "recipient is dead". At the X.400 protocol level this was a binary number. SMTP uses a 3 digit number for general category, followed by a free form line of text. Many other Internet standards including HTTP use the same pattern.
It was already obvious at the time that the X.400 field was insufficient, yet also impractical for mail administrators to ensure was complete and correct.
That was the underlying problem with the X.400 and similar where they covered everything in advance as part of the spec, while Internet standards were more pragmatic.
Immutability is one of the best things about email.
>> SMTP "“didn’t win because it was ‘better,’” he argued, but “just because it was easier to implement." Yes - and this is actually really important! It's true of most of the important early internet technologies. It's the entire reason "internet" standards won over "telco" (in this case ITU) standards - the latter could only be deployed by big coordinated efforts, while internet standards let individual decentralize…
> It's the entire reason "internet" standards won over "telco" (in this case ITU) standards - the latter could only be deployed by big coordinated efforts, Anyone remember the promise of ATM networking in the 90's? It was telecom grade networking which used circuit switched networking that would handle voice, video and data down one pipe. Instead of carelessly flinging packets into the ether like an savage, you had a…
There's likely an element of the "layering TCP on TCP" problem going on, too.
The classic popular treatment of the subject is: https://www.wired.com/1996/10/atm-3/
>> SMTP "“didn’t win because it was ‘better,’” he argued, but “just because it was easier to implement." Yes - and this is actually really important! It's true of most of the important early internet technologies. It's the entire reason "internet" standards won over "telco" (in this case ITU) standards - the latter could only be deployed by big coordinated efforts, while internet standards let individual decentralize…
I’ve never been a fan
> If the history of email had gone somewhat differently, the last email you sent could have been rescinded or superseded by a newer version when you accidentally wrote the wrong thing. It could have auto-destructed if not read by midnight. Immutability is one of the best things about email.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if you can't figure out how to make an unsubscribe page that doesn't require a captcha (and is triggered by email scanners) you are incompetent. Claude can figure it out.
> and is triggered by email scanners Did you mean "and is NOT triggered by email scanners"? AFAIU, "email scanners" get more aggressive over time, so there is no once-and-forever solution. I guess AI-enabled email scanners can attempt to solve captchas as well.