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Re: Number of Firewall/NAT Users

2001-01-23 19:50:02
> There was even an analogy to NAT's "addresses embedded in the application data
> stream" problem: if you had an address in your .signature, the gateway 
couldn't
> translate it, so the person receiving your message saw an address they 
couldn't
> use.

I liked even better the horror story of the gateway that tried.....

until someone wrote "this gateway translates 
jcb(_at_)host(_dot_)company(_dot_)com into
john(_dot_)c(_dot_)braindead(_at_)company(_dot_)com", and it came out to the 
recipient as
"this gateway translates john(_dot_)c(_dot_)braindead(_at_)company(_dot_)com 
into
john(_dot_)c(_dot_)braindead(_at_)company(_dot_)com".....which somehow failed 
to get the point
across....

I've actually seen this happen. Mail system configuration files sent to us from
behind such a gateway were curiously corrupt when they reached us, and when we
fixed them and sent them back the errors were in what was received... Turned
out that someone took the corporate mandate to "remove all references to our
old name" a bit too seriously.

If memory serves, we used ROT13 to get around the translation, since
administrative turfs were such that an actual fix for the problem wasn't
possible.

                                Ned