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Re: U.S. Postal Service proposal: restricting domain names to street addresses
- To: "Roeland M.J. Meyer" <rmeyer@mhsc.com>
- Subject: Re: U.S. Postal Service proposal: restricting domain names to street addresses
- From: Michael Sondow <msondow@ic.sunysb.edu>
- Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 13:53:54 -0400 (EDT)
- cc: Open RSC <domain-policy@open-rsc.org>, Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@aa.fv.com>, cpsr-dns <harryh-dns@quark.cpsr.org>, IFWP discussion list <list@ifwp.org>, International Congress of Independent Internet Users <iciiu@iciiu.org>, Internet Service Providers Consortium <ispc-list@ispc.org>, interNIC <DOMAIN-POLICY@LISTS.INTERNIC.NET>, itu <ifwp-discuss@itu.int>, UnivPostalUnion <webmaster@upu.net>, dns@ntia.doc.gov, IANA <comments@iana.org>
- In-Reply-To: <199808141728.KAA04528@condor.mhsc.com>
Quite so.
On Fri, 14 Aug 1998, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote:
> At 11:24 AM 8/14/98 -0400, Michael Sondow wrote:
> >I fail to see the logic behind your arguments. If e-mail can go to a
> >street address, it is no more than a telegram. Why, then, has all the
> >trouble to set up networked digital communications be taken?
>
> Actually, the idea, around our boardroom, was to install an envelope
> stuffer, which would convert an email to a letter, in order to send e-mail
> to folks (friends/relatives/family) who did not have e-mail at all. We
> figured it to be a logistical nightmare, for us. Someone else may actually
> get it to work. It should be reasonably profitable. Cheaper than a telegram
> but more expensive than a letter, even if more convenient. Also, it's
> really out of MHSC business scope and mission. There are other problems
> wrt, file-attachments.<grin> MHSC wants 1% if you can make it work<grin>.
>
> >Surely the
> >whole point to the Internet is that it serves two-way communication that
> >is not restricted by geography: you can get your e-mail anywhere, change
> >your e-mail address or your domain name from one ISP or server to
> >another, alias mail, bounce it, forward it at will.
>
> >If community groups wish to set up local (geographical) lists, nothing
> >is stopping them from walking around the heighborhood and collecting
> >people's e-mail addresses. It is not necessary, and would not work, for
> >the addresses to be somehow defined by the neighborhood. People move.
>
> Here is the real problem. The work involved around address changes would be
> emmense. Personally, I have moved between California, Texas, Ohio, and
> Colorado, over 6 times, between 1989 and 1995. In order to keep things
> straight, I wound up having to get a box at a "Mail Boxes Etc." (MBE)
> because the postal service was not keeping up with me. I was getting mail
> as much as a year late. Now, someone wants those same yahoos to maintain
> the .US domain and geographical e-mail boxen? Who had *that* brain-fart?
>
> Besides, one site with machines to automate the conversion, and an address
> given my the user (only checked for format), stamp it, and put it in the
> postal system. USPS will even give a special deal on postage, just like an
> MBE. The whole shebanggy can be 98% automated.
>
> Where in here is there a requirement for a physically located e-mail
> address? The answer is that you don't need it. The whole idea has the
> merits of a fart in a hurricane.
>
> >Others who live there, and by your argument would have an address with a
> >local definition, do not want to be in the community group.
> >
> >Perhaps I should not have said "the spirit of universality", but rather
> >"the spirit of extra-territoriality", for surely it is this spirit which
> >has acted as a game plan, a foundation, for the extension of the
> >Internet over the earth. Communities are free to form, but they are not
> >restricted in their formation, not by color, not by religion, not by
> >age, not by sex, and no longer by neighborhood, or state.
> >
> >
> > Michael Sondow
> >
> >
> >
> >On Fri, 14 Aug 1998, Nathaniel Borenstein wrote:
> >
> >> Excerpts from cpsr.bulk: 14-Aug-98 U.S. Postal Service proposa.. Michael
> >> Sondow@ic.sunysb (894*)
> >>
> >> > I am categorically opposed to all and any definition,
> >> > restriction, or limitation of domain names by geographical street
> >> > addresses. Such restriction is totally antithetical to the spirit of
> >> > universality of Internet communications. Better would be the
> >> > abandonment, internationally, of ccTLDs.
> >>
> >> I personally have a hard time seeing why you think this. I think it
> >> would be very good for communities, for example, if you could send email
> >> to your neighbors by their street address, or set up mailing lists for
> >> everyone in your block or neighborhood. How is this antithetical to the
> >> "spirit of universality"? -- Nathaniel
> >> --------
> >> Unless all existence is a medium of revelation, no particular revelation is
> >> possible. -- William Temple
> >>
> >> Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb+faq@guppylake.com>
> >>
> >
>
> ___________________________________________________
> Roeland M.J. Meyer, ISOC (InterNIC RM993)
> e-mail: <mailto:rmeyer@mhsc.com>rmeyer@mhsc.com
> Internet phone: hawk.mhsc.com
> Personal web pages: <http://www.mhsc.com/~rmeyer>www.mhsc.com/~rmeyer
> Company web-site: <http://www.mhsc.com/>www.mhsc.com/
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