User Unknown (WAS: really amazon?)

Mon Aug 12 20:13:45 UTC 2019

On 12 Aug 2019, at 3:26 PM, Rich Kulawiec <rsk at gsp.org> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Aug 04, 2019 at 12:12:48AM -0700, Stephen Satchell wrote:
>> "The rules" have been around for years, and are codified in the RFCs
>> that are widely published and available to all at zero cost.  (That
>> wasn't always true, as it wasn't until the DDN Protocol Handbook volumes
>> were published in 1985 that the RFCs were available to everyone.  I seem
>> to recall there was an FTP site that provided the RFC documents before
>> that, but my memory is hazy on that.)
> 
> IIRC, the CSnet CIC provided an RFC-by-mail service in the mid to late 1980's.
> It allowed anyone to request any RFC by number, e.g., sending it "rfc123" would
> result in a response containing that RFC. 

Indeed - it was the "CSNET Information Server" <info-server at sh.cs.net>, and it not only served RFCs but also a variety of other DDN/NSF/Merit/IETF internet informational documents...  

With the shutdown of the CSNET Coordination and Information Center (CSNET CIC) in 1991, the email-based info-server function 
was transferred to the NSF Network Service Center (NNSC) <info-server at nnsc.nsf.net> where it operated until of all the various
Internet informational/registry/directory services were transferred into the consolidated InterNIC contract. 

FYI,
/John