Subj : MSGID
To   : Oli
From : Carlos Navarro
Date : Tue Feb 15 2022 09:02 pm

 O> So did anyone experience any problems with non-unique / repeating MSGIDs
 O> in real life? Is it a real problem or just theoretical?
[snip]

Rob, mark, andre ... have already commented about this.

 O> An regarding MSGID format:

 O>    "The originating address should be specified in a form that
 O>    constitutes a valid return address for the originating network."

 O> Of course one could insist there is only a "should" and not a "must" in
 O> FTS-9, but string@z:n/f.p is still not a valid return address.

Doesn't matter, because FTN software doesn't (or shouldn't) get it from the MSGID to use it as a return address. (except NetMgr for netmail only, it seems)

I suppose it can be considered as a way to specify a username or account in a Fido system, like in internet email. I've sometimes seen expressions like: "Send a netmail to PING@1:2/3"

Anyway, using string@z:n/f.p in the MSGID (at least in echomail) doesn't seem to break anything and we can still see the originating system's address there. 

 O> But then I could also be very clever and recognize that

 O>    "The serial number may be any eight character hexadecimal number"

 O> uses "may". So there is no hard requirement that there is a serialno at
 O> all.

Yes there is. That sentence continues: "as long as it is unique ..."

But what matters is if using a different scheme for the serialno (longer, non-hex... or none) would create problems.

 O> FTS-9 also doesn't require that there are no spaces (0x32) in the origaddr
 O> (which doesn't have to be a valid address). Which means anything goes, as
 O> long as MSGID is unique and "A double-quote character within a quoted
 O> address is represented by by two consecutive double-quote characters."

Yes, except that space is 0x20 ;-)

Perhaps all that stuff about quotes should be removed from the document (including the "orginating" typo) some day. AFAIK it's not current practice.

 O> According to FTS-9 and FTS-4000 this would be valid too:

 O> ^aMSGID: 🤔🙏🤫🧠😷🤖🥳 🖕

Invalid MSGID - missing 8-byte hex serialno. 😛 

Carlos

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