On 12-JAN-1998 I have posted a message to port-vax that apparently has
got lost. I have tried re-posting it with no luck. I have just moved my E-
mail to a different UNIX system (note my new address), and I'm making
another attempt to post it, this time from the new system. It is enclosed
at the end of this message.
   
   Sincerely,
   Michael Sokolov
   Phone: 440-449-0299
   ARPA Internet SMTP mail: sokolov@alpha.ces.cwru.edu
   
   Enclosure: My apparently-lost posting:
   
   Matthew N. Dodd <winter@jurai.net> wrote:
> Breaking up mail tasks into just 3 catagories causes some problems...
>
> Here is how I break things up:
>
> MX              - accepts mail from non-local systems
> RELAY           - delivers mail to non-local systems
> SMTP            - accepts mail from local clients (pop3 or imap4 users)
> BACKEND         - serves users mailboxes
> POP3/IMAP4      - interfaces with local clients
   Really there are only 3 tasks in the above list. What you call MX and
BACKEND is really one task, the same for SMTP and RELAY. Whenever an SMTP
message is received from somewhere, it has to be put somewhere else, and
these tasks can't be separated (unless you are storing mail in memory :-)).
> Of course, for low numbers of users, none of this stuff makes much of a
> difference.  Serving 100s or 1000s of users on a single box isn't a real
> big deal.
   Well, I would agree that a hundred users is a small number, but
thousands of users would make a completely different story. Our campus
community consists of about 10000 people, so if I manage to attract a few
thousand to my project I will be in business big time. In that case I won't
even have to worry about finding a job after graduating (imagine one half
of the total campus population assemble in front of the President's office
demanding that I be hired full-time to run Harhan...).
   I guess that none of you know the purpose of Harhan Project, so let me
describe it to you briefly. Starting in Fall 1996 I have become a student
at CWRU. Almost immediately upon entering CWRU I have become aware of a
major problem that affects anyone who is at least somewhat computer-
literate. The people who run our campus computer network (CWRUnet) are
paranoid fascists. They push bleeding edge technologies on poor civilians,
stipulate dumb userism, and regard any attempt to _understand_ the system
as a security breach. Computer and freedom lovers around the whole campus
have been whining about it for a few years by now, but no one was able to
do anything.
   After being at CWRU for a semester and a half (that was mid-Spring 1997)
I had gathered enough guts to step in and try to remedy at least one part
of the problem. INS (Information Network Services, the a**holes who run
CWRUnet) run a UNIX system (a mixture of SPARCs running SunOS v4.xx and
Pentiums running BSDI) on which every user's "official" mailbox is stored.
The problem is, these a**holes push everyone into doing all Internet work
on their own computers, reading mail via POP3, and sending mail via SMTP.
The only facility that they provide for poor terminal users is a highly-
restrictive menu system, whose features are constantly being closed off
"for security reasons". They even threaten to shut it down completely!
   And so I had decided to build an alternative UNIX system. I went to Paul
Stephan, a very powerful guy in our department, and tried getting his
support. My key point in persuading him was that the support I needed was
primarily administrative and not really financial. I was asking for old
hardware and some space to house it. He agreed tentatively, and with his
support I started working on this project in the beginning of June 1997.
Since the project had no name at that time, I have (code)named it Harhan
after one star system in Yury Petuhov's impressive science fiction epic
_Star Revenge_. This (code)name is just as bold and courageous as the
project itself. Managing their UNIX system is not the only thing that INS
does in a fascist and paranoid way. Their policies in physical network
management and the assignment of IP addresses and hostnames are just as
fascist. Currently everyone at CWRU is very much afraid of this Empire of
Darkness and kneels before them like a slave. I envision my Harhan project
as part of a much greater Star Revenge project against INS. The UNIX system
might be a small problem compared to physical network management and the
assignment of IP addresses and hostnames (a lot of people and departments
have their own UNIX machines already), but it will be an outloud example to
everyone at CWRU that we can revolt against the Empire of Darkness. That's
why it's so important to get as many users as possible, since the more
users I have, the more power I will have in the inevitable revolution.
   
   Sincerely,
   Michael Sokolov
   Phone: 440-449-0299
   ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46@po.cwru.edu