Re: Links in email

[Matt Ion <soundy -at- ROGERS -dot- WAVE -dot- CA>]

On Fri, 12 Sep 1997 18:59:42 EDT, Sabahat Ashraf wrote:

>E-MAIL ADDRESSES ON THE INTERNET: These, I believe have always been case
>insensitive. Methinks this is defined in TCP/IP, the underlying Protocol that
>sets the rules for the Internet.

TCP/IP is simply the protocol(s) used for computers to talk to each
other.  The specification for it has nothing to do with e-mail; e-mail is
just one form of communication that typically uses (but is not limited to
using) this mode of transport.

Things like e-mail address formats and just about all other types of
things that use TCP/IP as their medium (http, nntp, smtp, irc, etc. etc.
ad nauseum), are the domains of RFCs (Request For Comment documents).
Most are unratified, "experimental", or in some way, not "set in
stone"... but for the most part, they're adhered to, as this is what made
the Internet possible in the first place.

A good place to start would be at Internic; specifically,
http://ds.internic.net/rfc -- this will give you a directory listing of
all the RFCs in text form.  There are also index and instructional text
files.

Be warned, the file list alone is almost 180k; the index file is over
250k.  Just to help narrow the search, Internet e-mail address formats
(and other mail-format specifics) are covered in RFC 0822 (rfc822.txt in
the above directory):

   0822 Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text messages.
        D. Crocker. Aug-13-1982. (Format: TXT=109200 bytes)
        (Obsoletes RFC0733) (Updated by RFC1123, RFC1138, RFC1148)
        (Also STD0011)

Another handy one, if you're setting up a company site and want to use
the "official" contact mailbox names (such as "info -at- company -dot- com"):

   2142 Mailbox Names for Common Services, Roles and Functions.
        D. Crocker. May 1997. (Format: TXT=12195 bytes)

Note that these RFCs go back to 1969(!!) and predate the "Internet" as
most people know it.  Per the description:

   0001 Host Software. Steve Crocker. Apr-07-1969.
        (Format: TXT=21088 bytes)

Also worth noting is that the filenames themselves do NOT include the
padding zeros (RFC 0001 is rfc1.txt; RFC 0822 is rfc822.txt, and so on).

BTW, other sites also have all or at least some RFCs; some have them in
pretty HTML and/or have nice search engines.  Internic being the sort of
"controlling" interest, though, is the definitive source for such
information.


 Your friend and mine,
 Matt
 <insert standard disclaimer here>
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