[ih] FTP RIP

Thu Oct 1 16:57:52 PDT 2020

jack, actually no vis-a-vis

"So a reply to a message would go to the original message's author twice,
once directly and once through the mailing list.   That still happens today
- Geoff and Dave should get two copies of this message."

as it seems that the IH mailing list SW thinger at ISOC is Very
Smart/Clever in this regard and seems to "know" (looking and seeing of To:
geoff at iconia.com in the header).

ERGO, yours truly only got ONE copy of your reply (directly from you and
none from/via the list), viz.:

Received: from atl4mhfb03.myregisteredsite.com (
atl4mhfb03.myregisteredsite.com [209.17.115.119]) by
strange.networkguild.org (8.15.2/8.15.2/Debian-20) with ESMTPS id
091Mg9Rg029555 (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256
verify=NO) for <geoff at iconia.com>; Thu, 1 Oct 2020 18:42:09 -0400
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[64.69.218.109]) by atl4mhfb03.myregisteredsite.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with
ESMTP id 091Mg6Rq020259 for <geoff at iconia.com>; Thu, 1 Oct 2020 18:42:08
-0400
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)
  by 209.237.134.154 with ESMTPA; 1 Oct 2020 22:41:39 -0000
Subject: Re: [ih] FTP RIP
To: the keyboard of geoff goodfellow <geoff at iconia.com>
Cc: Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>, Dave Crocker <
dcrocker at bbiw.net>
References: <20201001182833.3E66918C0EC at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <
b210b7bc-d443-6baa-8034-3ec345b817cf at 3kitty.org> <
CAEf-zrhraJ1eZ3gJvPG4fx8jtO0s8vXXOpspRvEhw_DBzJkz7w at mail.gmail.com>
From: Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org>

just as you should/will hopefully also only receive one copy with this
reply directly from yours truly's smtp out host bottom.networkguild.org and
not from/via the ISOC list server elists.isoc.org (just check your
Received: line headers :D)...

// geoff

On Thu, Oct 1, 2020 at 12:42 PM Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org> wrote:

> Actually, there were two mail systems in use at MIT on ITS at the time.
> KLH (Ken Harrenstein) wrote COMSAT for MIT-AI; I wrote COMSYS for MIT-DM.
>
> Both of these had mailing-list functionality.  If you look through those
> Header-people archives that Noel has collected, you'll find one message
> where I asked whoever was in charge of the MSGGROUP list to add
> "MSGGRP at MIT-DM".   That was a list kept on COMSYS that reduced ARPANET
> traffic by sending each MSGGROUP message once to MIT-DM, and then locally
> to users on MIT-DM.  In networking terms, addresses could be "multicast" in
> nature.
>
> We played around a lot with mailing lists, and unearthed some issues.
>
> For example, replies, redistribution, and forwarding couldn't detect that
> addressees were duplicated.   So a reply to a message would go to the
> original message's author twice, once directly and once through the mailing
> list.   That still happens today - Geoff and Dave should get two copies of
> this message.
>
> One especially gnarly problem was how do you detect, and then prevent,
> "routing loops" when someone creates a mailing list which inadvertently
> contains another mailing list.   This was one of the motivations for
> putting the "Message-ID" field in the header standard.   Message systems
> could then detect "looping" messages -- if the programmer wrote the
> appropriate code.
>
> It's been close to 50 years; I wonder what would happen today if...
>
> /Jack
>
> On 10/1/20 2:31 PM, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow wrote:
>
> IIRC, ITS with its COMSAT mailer was the first ARPANET host to support
> mailing lists where one could send to MailingListName at MIT-{AI,DM,MC,ML}
> and the COMSAT MTA would then "automatically" sent out to others (without
> any human interaction for such memorable lists such as HUMAN-NETS,
> SF-LOVERS, HEADER-PEOPLE, TELECOM, etc.]
>
> TENEX -- which pretty much "ruled" the ARPANET at the time (:D) --
> (never?) had no such capability... mailing lists like Peter Neumann's
> RISKS-FORUM which yours truly setup when at/in SRI-CSL and Einar
> Stefferud's MSGGROUP at USC-ISI collected submissions in a files only
> directory like <RISKS> & <MSGGROUP> to which the list admin/moderator would
> then invoke an UI (like MSG) on to manually forward (or "ReDistribute" in
> HERMES) to the list members -- who were manually added or subtracted to a
> file.
>
> IIRC, this was pretty much the state of affairs until Unix (and MTA's such
> as delivermail, sendmail, MMDF, ...) came along for which majordomo was
> piped to, which then introduced automated list management... cue to: Mr.
> Email aka Dave Crocker.. :D
>
> // geoff
>
> On Thu, Oct 1, 2020 at 10:52 AM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>> Unfortunately, my Dectapes weren't stored very well, and succumbed to
>> decades of summer attic heat and winter below-zero abuse.   They
>> eventually became brittle and crumbled.  The plastic cases were
>> surprisingly robust; the tape itself not so much.
>>
>> I also have a request in to MIT for whatever they can find of my ancient
>> ITS work.  I just got back a response that my request has been "closed"
>> with no action, but that "we are working on our procedure for this
>> collection and hope to have it in place soon."
>>
>> So I have to now create an account and re-submit my request.  Best to
>> wait a bit for "soon" to pass I guess.
>>
>> Yes, there were a lot of mailing lists, as well as a lot of interaction
>> among small groups of people not using any formal list at all.
>>
>> If you're a packrat, Lars is the premier Internet Dumpster Diver.  It
>> will be interesting to see those first two archives.
>>
>> /Jack
>>
>>
>> On 10/1/20 11:28 AM, Noel Chiappa via Internet-history wrote:
>> >     > From: Jack Haverty
>> >
>> >     > I lost my own packrat stash when I failed to find a way to move
>> info
>> >     > from Dectapes to a more modern medium.
>> >
>> > Oh, you didn't pitch them, did you? There are a couple of people in the
>> > classic computer community who have working DECTape drives. (I have a
>> TU56
>> > and TC11 controller, but don't have them working yet.) So if you still
>> > have them they could be read. Ditto for RK packs, etc, etc.
>> >
>> >     > the message archives Noel has saved for almost 50 years.
>> >
>> > Err, I didn't save them for the whole 50 years! About 10 years ago, I
>> noticed
>> > that stuff that _used_ to be available on the Web had started to
>> disappear.
>> >
>> > (There was one particular list archive which the person hosting it had
>> taken
>> > down because they had developed an objection to it. I can't remember
>> which
>> > list it was now; it was something from the early commercialization of
>> the
>> > Internet. Maybe something about email?)
>> >
>> > So I went out and scarfed up all the archives I could find for lists
>> which I
>> > remembered as early and important, and which seemed to me to be in
>> danger of
>> > going offline. (As in, hosted by individuals, not institutions.) The
>> Internet
>> > Archive was, IIRC, a big help; I had old URLs for some things which
>> weren't
>> > up anymore, but the IA came through.
>> >
>> > A lot has gone, though, sigh; e.g. the DARPA Internet group had a list,
>> one
>> > whose archives would be invaluable to historians of technology, but I
>> think
>> > they are gone (although if institutions still have backup tapes from
>> that
>> > era, perhaps they could be recovered).
>> >
>> > Speaking of which, Lars has found a copy of the two earliest
>> Hearer-Prople
>> > archives (the ones I'm missing) on ITS backup tapes at the MIT
>> Archives, and
>> > I'll be working on getting them released so they can be put up. Thanks,
>> Lars!
>> >
>> >       Noel
>>
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>
>>
>
> --
> Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
> living as The Truth is True
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
living as The Truth is True