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I got my first PC-type computer in 1988. It was a Bondwell-made PC-XT computer with a 8MHz 8088-compatible processor, 360kB floppy drive and a 20MB hard disk. When I got the beast, I didn't have the guts to open the case so I could install a modem, but I did learn much.. after running my BBS on it for a couple of years and even connecting it to a UUCP network with Waffle, I had stripped it down to a motherboard with all the components and power supply on my table. Don't ask why. Anyway, somehow I managed to break the MB in half.
After a careful examination I decided it was worth a try to solder the board back together, so I went for it.. I'm so glad they hadn't invented multi-layer boards back then because the damn thing worked like nothing had happened! After this it was easy to repair my modem that had been struck by a lightning.

I'm told that it was first bandied about during the panic the first time Usenet traffic exceeded the ability of a 9600bps link to keep up with it over a 24 hour period.

We use a USB memory stick as a physical carrier for internet data - Email and (cached) web access. Check it out at wizzy.org.za - based out of South Africa, but with an open-source CD download at the site above.

Our main carrier protocol is UUCP Cheers, Andy!

Also, if you really need the full features of a real connection to the Internet- you can probably buy one under the heading of "commercial connection"- that's what I'm going to do when I move from my apartmnent where I have a similar situation as you.

So residental people aren't supposed to have a 'real' connection to the internet? Consumer level broadband is for people that want more bandwidth then a modem can provide, but don't need nearly as much bandwidth as a T1 would provide. Where do you get the idea that a consumer broadband option isn't a real connection in the first place and that it doesn't deserve to have all the options any other connection (including modems) would have?

Why should anyone pay for a commercial connection when they are using email for non-commercial purposes? Seems kinda silly to me.

Your suggestion to complain about the email service the ISP provides is laughable. When was the last time that actually helped? More likely then not, they'd simply add a clause stating they don't garentee uptime.

SMTP-auth from a friend is likely to encounter the same problem the original poster is having? UUCP? Are you kidding me? It looks like they have shut down, and just by looking at the front page that site hasn't been updated in three years. Sounds like an earlier mail protocol that is now dead.

Sendmail should have been retired years ago. Now that UUCP, Bitnet, etc. are defunct, that programmable parser in Sendmail is a liability.

Remember UUCP? Here's its shutdown notice.

Also, just because there isn't some blatantly overused publicly-known exploit "in the wild" doesn't mean much. Serious attacks are made by people quietly targeting specific systems for specific reasons. Those are the ones you don't hear about unless they get caught, which usually happens when they're spending the money from the stolen credit card numbers or whatever.

Sendmail and BIND are database applications that don't use a back-end database. That's an obsolete approach.

In spite of the trolling title, nothing in the article even implies that the USPS even considered "owning" or controlling the email delivery infrastructure. It says that there was a point where it could have bought much of the telegraph infrastructure (but it didn't), and there was a point where it could have offered email services, but decided it was out of their mandate.

If, in 1982 they decieded to offer electronic mail services, they would have found UUCP
and BITNet already there, connecting colleges, government agencies, and some companies with electronic mail and other services. Businessmen and power users with money were already sending electronic mail through services like Compuserve and The Source.

I don't see anything the USPS could have done to stop the rise of FidoNet in 1984. FidoNet allowed anybody to call up a local BBS system (which was often free), and send an email that could get routed internationally, or to any of the other email networks.

The bottom line is, there is no way short of draconian legislation that would have allowed the USPS to "own" email. The most that could have happened is for them to offer email to customers; customers who have other options that the post office must compete with. Kind of like package delivery: the USPS offers package delivery service, but as any employee of FedEx, UPS or DHL will tell you, they by no means own the service.

It wasn't that long ago that people were using UUCP and bang paths to push mail around. The jargon file entry for Internet address mentions that the term is used loosely for anything reachable from the Internet, including bang paths.