TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Why I Am Not Switching to Verizon

Re: Why I Am Not Switching to Verizon

Michael D. Sullivan (userid@camsul.example.invalid)
Sat, 05 May 2007 08:33:58 GMT

On 5/3/2007 5:32 PM, jmeissen@aracnet.com wrote:

> In article <telecom26.118.2@telecom-digest.org>, zalek
> <ZalekBloom@gmail.com> wrote:

>> I am pissed off with my current ISP -- Time Warner Road Runner -- they
>> cut back on technicians and now I have to wait one week for
>> appointment. I checked with Verizon DSL -- they they established new
>> policy that email address must be alphanumeric.

> What's so unusual about that? I'd have to go look for the RFC to be
> sure, but I thought the alphanumeric requirement was part of the
> standard.

This is certainly not the case. In the usual contorted way of
defining syntax, RFC 822 allows the "local-part" of an email address
(the part before the "at" symbol) to be any number of one or more
"words" separated by dots (periods or full stops); a "word", on the
other hand, can be either an "atom" or a "quoted-string". An "atom"
can be any number of "chars" other than "specials", "spaces", or
"ctls" (i.e., any ASCII character from 0 to 127 other than
()<>@,;:\".[] space, or ASCII 0-31, 127. A "quoted -string" is a
quote-mark followed by one or more "qtext" or "quoted-pair"
characters, followed by a quote-mark ("). A "qtext" is any "char"
(ASCII 0-127) other than the quote-mark, backslash (\), or
carriage-return(CR), but including "linear-white-space" (which, in
turn is a combination of optional "CRLFs" (i.e., CR followed by LF)
and "LWSP-chars" (spaces or horizontal tabs). Finally, a
"quoted-pair" is a backslash followd by any "char".

So the RFC would permit email addresses with local-parts such as
john.smith, john-smith, $John!=+^Smith*, John_Smith,
"\\\"Jo(hn@Sm]]ith", or even Jo\ hn\ Smith and much, much weirder
addresses.

Michael D. Sullivan
Bethesda, MD (USA)
(To reply, change example.invalid to com in the address.)

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