PE> It is not possible to get "no address at all", the fields are
 PE> binary numbers. The net + node are 16 bits.

  hex 00 00 must go pretty close to no address at all, especially if
the full address is 00 00: 00 00/ 00 00. 00 00. It'd make me
suspicious, anyway.

 PE> Tell me which combination of 16 bits represents "no address at
 PE> all".

  See above.

 PE> Squish can't even check in the nodelist to see if an address is
 PE> valid.

  I understand that, but I assumed that a sensible qwk2pkt would
produce hex 00 00 etc if it doesn't have an address (just null pad the
spaces), and that the first Squish would pick that up and default to
the first node, to prevent the mail being sent world-wide.

  The way I see it, obviously faulty mail should be kept local, to
save money. From what you've been saying, it just goes out to random
addresses, presumably passed from one BBS to the next all over the
world, looking for a home. From a user's point of view, an important
message just vanishes, and privacy is zilch.

 PE> I just pass everything on to Dave Hatch. Until it gets to
 PE> someone who can't route it somewhere else, it will travel on
 PE> it's merry way. 

  Does Squish repack and rename packets, or do they just go complete?

  I hate to agree with Rod, but the whole principle of safety is based
on *two* things having to go wrong before you get a failure. It is
silly to say that the software generating the packets ought to be
foolproof, and rely on that. One would hope that there is a
double-failure built into the software, but even if it does fail,
there should be a second failsafe at the next stage, so that *both*
have to fail before you get an actual failure.

  This is the whole principle of failsafe procedures. I admit that it 
is not always possible. If the wing falls of a 747 you're essentially 
ratshit, but in those cases even *more* stringent procedures are imposed.

  It's insane that a wrong address loses the mail and sends it anywhere. 
The correct approach is to *assume* a wrong address and make sure the 
damage is contained... as you did in PQWK222. IMO, Squish should default 
bad mail to 3:711/934.0... or better still, use a lookup for your points 
using the "To: name" field. Even an automatic system could do that.

 BL> Doesn't Squish do any checking of the net and node numbers in
 BL> the header, even blanks? Surely it would know a blank is not
 BL> right, and default to the net/node in the *packet* header?

 PE> How do you get a blank into a binary number? A blank is
 PE> represented in ASCII as x'20', or decimal 32. There is nothing
 PE> wrong with someone who wants to send mail to 1:32/32.

  yair... but 0x2020 starts to look a bit weird. The two likely errors
would be hex 0000 and hex 2020. The chance of those being a correct
address is 1/64,000 even if you assume they are all equally possible.
The real odds must be closer to a billion-to-one (maybe a trillion).

 BL> Does the later version of qwk2pkt leave those fields blank,
 BL> rather than default to the home address 711 934?

 PE> The net and node are set to whatever you put in "To:", and in
 PE> the absence of that, the default is YOUR net and node, which
 PE> happen to be 711 and 934 respectively. BFN. Paul.

  I know 222 does that (which is why I'm using it). I wondered what
Rod's 202 did.

Regards,
Bob
 

 



    

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