[ih] Some Questions over IPv4 Ownership

[Craig Partridge]

> David - thanks!  It will be interesting to see how it works out.
> 
> Actually, this topic has come up before - almost 40 years ago, when
> email was in its infancy. We had lots of conversations then about email,
> what an address really was, etc.  It was annoying for people as they
> left with their brand new degree to discover that they also lost their
> identity - their email address on the ARPANet.  I used to be
> jfh at mit-dms, but I lost that when I left MIT.

It came up again briefly in the transition to SMTP, cf. RFC 773.

> Back in the 90s, I was involved in meetings with the US Postal Service,
> who were trying to figure out their role in our brave new Internet
> world.  We tried to convince them that they should step up and manage
> email addresses, just as they do for physical addresses.  But the
> addresses could be people, not just buildings or roles like "Customer
> Service", and technologies such as digital signatures would verify
> authenticity.  You would get your email address from them, and it would
> be portable.   All email would in effect be "General Delivery", and the
> postal system would keep track of where you wanted it delivered as you
> moved around (this is the hard part, engineering-wise, but it's no worse
> than cell phones).

This is actually a service that many alumni associations and professional
societies offer -- they relay mail through to your current address.

Thanks!

Craig