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Re: (NC) mgs@autox.team.net e-mail delay

To: Kai Radicke <mowogmg@pil.net>
Subject: Re: (NC) mgs@autox.team.net e-mail delay
From: Trevor Boicey <tboicey@brit.ca>
Date: Sat, 06 Sep 1997 20:00:47 -0400
Kai Radicke wrote:
> Ok now.  Once your ISP gets all the packets the email server your ISP uses
> then reassembles the email, and puts it into your mailbox.  But before it
> can reassemble the email it must receive all the packets.
> 
> Does everyone understand?

  I think many do. I know you don't.

  Simply, this is very wrong. Email is not "sent out the wire" and
then forgotten about by autox until someday it may or may
not arrive where you are.

  Please read up on the SMTP protocol. It is pseudo interactive,
it involves commands and responses. Not simply a barrage of
packets that somehow find places to hide in cyberspace only
to reappear days later.

  Email is passed from machine to machine in real time. There
is no time where the mail is just "in transit" somewhere.

  As well, most email is sent directly, in other words,
right from autox.team.net to the machine that your
machine waits on while you are not reading it. It
is rare that email passes through more than a couple
of machines. Look at your email headers to see exactly
where every email has been.

  Note that there are packets involved when the two
email machines are communicating, like all internet
transactions. But the packets are no different than
any other packets, they aren't special "email" packets,
and at no time is your email merely packets shuffling
around the globe. The packets are merely the way
that the autox machine talks to your personal mail
machine during the email exchange.
  
  Kai, please don't miseducate people. I know you want
to seem intelligent, but there are many on the list
that really do understand and cringe to read your
posts.

  It is scary how you can know a tiny nugget
of the truth, or no truth at all, but then you post
pretending like it's "old hat" to you. People who
don't know you might take it seriously.

-- 
Trevor Boicey
Ottawa, Canada
tboicey@brit.ca
http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/

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