Re: Email Subaddressing

"D. J. Bernstein" <djb@koobera.math.uic.edu> Thu, 31 July 1997 08:35 UTC

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Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 08:15:18 -0000
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From: "D. J. Bernstein" <djb@koobera.math.uic.edu>
To: ietf-822@imc.org
Subject: Re: Email Subaddressing
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> there's a show-stopper for using "-". 

No, there isn't. But thanks for reminding me of this issue---it turns
out to be a show-stopper for your proposal.

> Many sites use the firstname.lastname@host naming convention
> and many people have "-" in their last names.

So what?

The software handles this just fine. It supports a more advanced address
hierarchy than your naive ``jean-marc MUST be delivered to jean'' idea.

What do you suggest someone do with existing usernames that contain +?
How will your wonderful new software handle this situation? Does it
start throwing away mail for those users?

With qmail, if + is the separator, those users will still receive mail.
Of course, this is incompatible with your delusion that local addresses
can be parsed by other hosts.

---Dan
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