Principles of Operation for the TPC.INT Subdomain: General Principles and Policy
The founding rules for tpc.int, a corner of the DNS that maps telephone numbers to hosts willing to print or fax for you.
Malamud, C. and M. Rose, "Principles of Operation for the TPC.INT Subdomain: General Principles and Policy", RFC 1530, DOI 10.17487/RFC1530, October 1993, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1530>.
@misc{rfc1530,
series = {Request for Comments},
number = 1530,
howpublished = {RFC 1530},
publisher = {RFC Editor},
doi = {10.17487/RFC1530},
url = {https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1530},
author = {C. Malamud and M. Rose},
title = {{Principles of Operation for the TPC.INT Subdomain: General Principles and Policy}},
pagetotal = 7,
year = 1993,
month = oct,
} RFC text
Contents
Network Working Group C. Malamud
Request for Comments: 1530 Internet Multicasting Service
Category: Informational M. Rose
Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.
October 1993
Principles of Operation for the TPC.INT Subdomain:
General Principles and Policy
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard. Distribution of this memo is
unlimited.
Abstract
This document defines the initial principles of operation for the
tpc.int subdomain, a collection of service listings accessible over
the Internet infrastructure through an administered namespace
contained within the Domain Name System [1,2].
This document is informational and applies only to those Internet
sites that choose to register themselves within the tpc.int
subdomain. The tpc.int subdomain is organized as a cooperative of
the sites that provide access within the context of the subdomain.
Policy for the subdomain is set by a board responsible to the
cooperative.
The primary purpose of the tpc.int subdomain is to provide
transparent mapping between general-purpose computers on the Internet
and special-purpose devices directly connected to the telephone
network. Initially, a remote printing service is defined [3,4] which
ties together G3-compatible facsimile devices on the telephone
network with users of electronic mail in the Internet and associated
message-handling domains connected to the Internet by application-
layer gateways.
It should be noted that remote printer gateways have long been
technically feasible and have become an integral part of many
individual networks. The tpc.int subdomain integrates individual
sites into a common namespace, transforming remote printing from a
single-site, value-added service into an integral transparent service
in the global Internet.
Overview of Services in the TPC.INT Subdomain
The tpc.int subdomain is organized as a cooperative, an association
organized for the purpose, without gain to itself, of rendering
service as defined in this document and as further defined by the
membership of the cooperative. Members of the tpc.int subdomain
cooperative are defined as those Internet sites who provide access to
services as defined in this document and as periodically amended by
the membership as represented by the Board of Arbitration and
Conciliation for the tpc.int subdomain.
The primary purpose of the tpc.int subdomain is to provide
transparent mappings between users of general-purpose computers on
the Internet and special-purpose devices directly connected to the
telephone network. This mapping extends the population reachable
from the Internet by providing a communications path to devices not
otherwise directly addressable.
The initial remote printing facility is built on top of the
electronic mail protocols of the Internet, including RFC 822 [5] and
MIME [6]. Because the remote printing service uses the message-
handling facilities of the Internet, this service is also available
to message-handling domains that are connected to the Internet
through application-layer gateways (e.g., X.400-compatible systems
[7], UUCP-based message-handling environments [8], and commercial
services such as AT&T Mail), MCI Mail), SprintMail), and CompuServe)
[9]).
Operation of Name Service in the TPC.INT Subdomain
Services in the Internet are identified with a service target name as
listed in the Domain Name System (DNS). These target names are
looked up in the DNS and the appropriate resource records associated
with the name are returned. After the name lookup has been
completed, the initiator exchanges a series of IP packets with an
Internet site which provides access to a service accessible through
the tpc.int subdomain.
In the case of remote printing, the DNS MX resource record is used to
register those Internet sites that provide access to the remote
printing facility. Specifically, an Internet site running a remote
printer server registers itself in the DNS as being willing to
provide access to some portion of the telephone system numbering plan
as registered by one or more MX records within the tpc.int subdomain.
For example, if the host hewes.radio.com is willing to provide remote
printing to devices with telephone numbers beginning with the prefix
+1-415-336, the host would be listed in the Domain Name System with
the following MX resource record:
*.6.3.3.5.1.4.1.tpc.int. IN MX 10 hewes.radio.com.
Note that the resource records can have an arbitrary level of
precision. For example, the North American numbering plan (IDDD
country code 1) is structured by a 3-digit area code, followed by a
3-digit exchange prefix, followed by a 4-digit station number. As
such, one might expect that resource records in this zone would be
similar to
*.5.1.4.1.tpc.int. IN MX 10 hewes.radio.com.
which accesses any printer with a telephone number prefix of +1-415
(i.e., any printer in area code 415). Another record might be
similar to
*.8.6.9.5.1.4.1.tpc.int. IN MX 10 hewes.radio.com.
allowing access to any printer in area code 415, exchange prefix 968.
However, the level of precision is arbitrary. For example, if all of
the printers in an organization had a telephone number prefix of +1-
415-96, the following resource record could be used:
*.6.9.5.1.4.1.tpc.int. IN MX 10 hewes.radio.com.
It is the responsibility of administrators of the tpc.int namespace
to register only those Internet sites that are willing to confirm to
the principles of operation as defined in this document and as
periodically amended by the Board of Arbitration and Conciliation for
the tpc.int subdomain.
It is a key principle in the tpc.int subdomain that all Internet
sites meeting the principles of operation as stated in this document
shall be registered in the tpc.int subdomain without bias and that
the subdomain should encourage the largest number of Internet sites
possible.
If multiple Internet sites are willing to provide access in the same
area, multiple resource records for the same target name are
maintained. In response to a query, the Domain Name System returns
the resource records in an unordered list. In practice, however, the
initiator will consult the list in the order returned. To provide an
unbiased environment, an authoritative name server for the tpc.int
subdomain shall alternate the ordering of the list frequently, and
shall return a small TTL with the resource records.
Policy Determination in the TPC.INT Subdomain
The tpc.int subdomain is organized as a cooperative, an association
organized for the purpose of rendering service, without gain to
itself, within the scope of service defined in this document and as
further defined by the membership of the cooperative. Members of the
tpc.int subdomain cooperative are defined as those Internet sites who
provide access to services as defined in this document and as
periodically amended by the membership as represented by the Board of
Arbitration and Conciliation for the TPC.INT Subdomain.
The primary purpose of the tpc.int subdomain is to provide
transparent mappings between users of general-purpose computers on
the Internet and special-purpose devices directly connected to the
telephone network. The listing of services in the tpc.int subdomain
is for the necessity and convenience of the general public with
special emphasis on providing a general-purpose link between the
Internet infrastructure and communications devices connected to the
telephone network.
Policies for the tpc.int subdomain are determined by its Board of
Arbitration and Conciliation. A Board of Arbitration and
Conciliation has its roots in English law, which permitted members of
a trade to appoint masters and workmen among them to serve as
councils of arbitration and conciliation for matters incapable of
being otherwise settled [10]. The Board of Arbitration and
Conciliation in the tpc.int subdomain consists of members of the
tpc.int subdomain cooperative appointed to hear and determine all
questions between members which may be submitted to them arising out
of the operation of services listed in the subdomain.
The initial Board of Arbitration and Conciliation is defined in this
document. Members of the Board shall serve for two-year terms except
that 50 percent or more of the initial Board shall serve for a one-
year term. The Board shall determine and publish procedures which
allow members of the tpc.int subdomain cooperative to select new
members of the Board as their terms expire.
If an issue relating to the definition of service or operation of
service listed within in the subdomain is raised and is incapable of
being settled otherwise, the matter shall be submitted by a member to
the Board of Arbitration and Conciliation. The Board shall hear the
question, making provisions for comments by other members of the
tpc.int subdomain cooperative and by the general public and shall
make and publish a determination of policy.
Secretariat services for the tpc.int subdomain are initially provided
by the Internet Multicasting Service, a non-profit corporation
located in Washington, D.C. The tpc.int subdomain cooperative may
contract with other groups for the provision of secretariat services
at any time.
The tpc.int subdomain is organized as a cooperative to encourage
policy determination to be in the hands of those that are offering
the services. The subdomain encourages the establishment of a large
number of sites, combining the distributed local efforts of many
individuals and small groups into a global service.
Provision of Services Listed in Other Subdomains
The primary purpose of the tpc.int subdomain is to provide
transparent mapping between the Internet and telephony environments.
Other logical subdomains may be established to provide similar
mappings. The Internet sites participating in those other subdomains
might also be registered under the tpc.int subdomain, or could choose
to be registered solely within those other subdomains with different
policies.
It is the policy of the tpc.int subdomain cooperative to encourage
the establishment of other service listing domains, either as a
public trust or cooperative or as a purely commercial venture.
Initial Board of Arbitration and Conciliation
The following are the initial Board of Arbitration and Conciliation
for the tpc.int subdomain:
Dr. Rob Blokzijl Dr. Jun Murai
NIKHEF Keio University
Amsterdam, Fujisawa
The Netherlands Japan
Geoff Huston Dr. Marshall T. Rose
AARNET Dover Beach Consulting
Canberra Mountain View, CA
Australia United States
Carl Malamud
Internet Multicasting Service
Washington, D.C.
United States
References
[1] Mockapetris, P., "Domain Names"Concepts and Facilities", STD 13,
RFC 1034, USC/Information Sciences Institute, November 1987.
[2] Mockapetris, P., "Domain Names"Implementation and Specification",
STD 13, RFC 1035, USC/Information Sciences Institute, November
1987.
[3] Malamud, C., and M. Rose, "Principles of Operation for the
TPC.INT Subdomain: Technical Procedures", RFC 1528, Internet
Multicasting Service, Dover Beach Consulting, Inc., October 1993.
[4] Malamud, C., and M. Rose, "Principles of Operation for the
TPC.INT Subdomain: Administrative Policies" RFC 1529, Internet
Multicasting Service, Dover Beach Consulting, Inc., October 1993.
[5] Crocker, D., "Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text
Messages", STD 11, RFC 822, UDEL, August 1982.
[6] Borenstein, N., and N. Freed, "MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions) Part One: Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing
the Format of Internet Message Bodies", RFC 1521, Bellcore,
Innosoft, September 1993.
[7] Hardcastle-Kille, S., "Mapping Between X.400 (1988)/ISO 10021 and
RFC 822", RFC 1327, May 1992. See also M.T. Rose, The Message
Book, Prentice Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 1992).
[8] Horton, M., "UUCP Mail Interchange Format Standard", RFC 976,
February, 1986. See also Tim O'Reilly and Grace Todino, Managing
UUCP and Usenet, O'Reilly & Associates (Sebastapol, CA: 1986).
[9] See Frey and Adams, !%@:: A Directory of Electronic Mail
Addressing and Networks, 3rd ed., O'Reilly & Associates
(Sebastapol, CA: 1993).
[10] See Acts 30 and 31 Vict., c. 105 as quoted in Black's Law
Dictionary, 5th ed., West Publishing (St. Paul, Minn: 1979), p.
313.
Security Considerations
Security issues are not discussed in this memo.
Authors' Addresses
Carl Malamud
Internet Multicasting Service
Suite 1155, The National Press Building
Washington, DC 20045
US
Phone: +1 202 628 2044
Fax: +1 202 628 2042
Email: carl@malamud.com
Marshall T. Rose
Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.
420 Whisman Court
Mountain View, CA 94043-2186
US
Phone: +1 415 968 1052
Fax: +1 415 968 2510
Email: mrose@dbc.mtview.ca.us
ISO Plain Language
On this page
§1What the tpc.int Subdomain Is For
The memo defines the initial principles of operation for the tpc.int subdomain, a collection of service listings reachable over the Internet through an administered namespace inside the Domain Name System. It is informational and applies only to the Internet sites that choose to register themselves there. The subdomain is organised as a cooperative of the sites that provide access within it, and policy for the subdomain is set by a board responsible to that cooperative.
The primary purpose is to provide a transparent mapping between general-purpose computers on the Internet and special-purpose devices connected directly to the telephone network. This extends the population reachable from the Internet by giving a communications path to devices that are not otherwise directly addressable.
The service defined first is remote printing, which ties together G3-compatible facsimile devices on the telephone network with users of electronic mail on the Internet and with the message-handling domains that connect to the Internet through application-layer gateways. The memo is careful to say that remote printer gateways had long been technically feasible and had become an integral part of many individual networks. What tpc.int adds is a common namespace, which transforms remote printing from a single-site, value-added service into an integral transparent service in the global Internet.
The remote printing facility is built on top of the electronic mail protocols of the Internet, including RFC 822 and MIME. Because it uses the message-handling facilities of the Internet, the service is also available to message-handling domains connected to the Internet through application-layer gateways, naming X.400-compatible systems, UUCP-based message-handling environments, and commercial services such as AT&T Mail, MCI Mail, SprintMail and CompuServe.
The idea is simple. A telephone number is written as a name in the DNS, and the DNS then points to the computers that are willing to send a fax on your behalf. The fax itself travels over the telephone network, but the request travels over the Internet, so anyone with mail access can reach it.
- NAME LOOKUPThe service target name is looked up and the MX resource records are returned in an unordered list.
- MAILThe message is sent using the mail protocols of the Internet, RFC 822 and MIME.
- G3 FACSIMILEThe server sends the message to the facsimile device over the telephone network.
§2How a Telephone Number Becomes a DNS Name
Services in the Internet are identified with a service target name listed in the DNS. Those target names are looked up in the DNS and the resource records associated with the name are returned. After the name lookup has been completed, the initiator exchanges a series of IP packets with an Internet site that provides access to a service reachable through the tpc.int subdomain.
For remote printing, the DNS MX resource record is used to register the Internet sites that provide access to the facility. A site running a remote printer server registers itself in the DNS as willing to provide access to some portion of the telephone system numbering plan, registered by one or more MX records inside the tpc.int subdomain. The memo's worked example is a host named hewes.radio.com that is willing to print for devices whose telephone numbers begin with the prefix +1-415-336; the host is then listed with an MX record whose target name is the telephone number written backwards, one digit per label, with a wildcard at the front.
The resource records can have an arbitrary level of precision. The North American numbering plan, country code 1, is structured by a 3-digit area code, then a 3-digit exchange prefix, then a 4-digit station number, and the memo shows records at each of those levels: one that reaches any printer in area code 415, another that reaches any printer in area code 415 with exchange prefix 968, and one that could be used if all the printers in an organisation shared the prefix +1-415-96. The level of precision is a matter of choice rather than of rule.
The telephone number is turned into a DNS name by writing it backwards, one digit per label. The more digits you include, the narrower the group of printers it reaches, and the site picks how precise to be.
*.6.3.3.5.1.4.1.tpc.int. IN MX 10 hewes.radio.com.
*.5.1.4.1.tpc.int. IN MX 10 hewes.radio.com.
*.8.6.9.5.1.4.1.tpc.int. IN MX 10 hewes.radio.com.
*.6.9.5.1.4.1.tpc.int. IN MX 10 hewes.radio.com.§3Registering Sites Without Bias
It is the responsibility of the administrators of the tpc.int namespace to register only those Internet sites that are willing to confirm to the principles of operation as defined in the memo and as periodically amended by the Board of Arbitration and Conciliation.
The memo then states a key principle. All Internet sites that meet the principles of operation shall be registered in the tpc.int subdomain without bias, and the subdomain should encourage the largest number of Internet sites possible.
What happens when more than one site wants to serve the same area is handled by keeping multiple resource records for the same target name. The DNS returns those records in an unordered list, but in practice the initiator consults the list in the order it was returned. To keep the environment unbiased, an authoritative name server for the tpc.int subdomain shall alternate the ordering of the list frequently, and shall return a small TTL with the resource records, so that no site can rely on being chosen first.
Any site that meets the rules gets in, and the memo wants as many sites as possible. When several serve the same area, the name server shuffles the list each time so that no one of them is always picked.
§4The Board of Arbitration and Conciliation
Policies for the tpc.int subdomain are determined by its Board of Arbitration and Conciliation. The memo explains where the idea comes from: it has its roots in English law, which permitted the members of a trade to appoint masters and workmen among them to serve as councils of arbitration and conciliation for matters incapable of being otherwise settled. The Board in tpc.int consists of members of the cooperative, appointed to hear and determine all questions between members which may be submitted to them arising out of the operation of services listed in the subdomain.
The initial Board is defined in the memo itself. Members serve two-year terms, except that 50 percent or more of the initial Board shall serve a one-year term. The Board shall determine and publish procedures that allow members of the cooperative to select new members of the Board as their terms expire.
If an issue relating to the definition of a service, or to the operation of a service listed in the subdomain, is raised and cannot be settled otherwise, a member submits the matter to the Board. The Board hears the question, makes provisions for comments by other members of the cooperative and by the general public, and makes and publishes a determination of policy.
Secretariat services for the subdomain are initially provided by the Internet Multicasting Service, a non-profit corporation located in Washington, D.C., and the cooperative may contract with other groups for the provision of those services at any time. The subdomain is organised as a cooperative so that policy determination stays in the hands of those offering the services, and the memo says the aim is a large number of sites, combining the distributed local efforts of many individuals and small groups into a global service.
The rules are made by a board of five people drawn from the sites that provide the service, in the style of an English trade arbitration council. The board settles any question the members cannot settle between themselves and publishes its decisions.
- Drawn from the membersThe Board consists of members of the cooperative, appointed to hear questions between members about the operation of the services listed in the subdomain.
- Two-year termsMembers serve two years, except that 50 percent or more of the initial Board serves a one-year term.
- Members choose their own successorsThe Board must determine and publish procedures allowing members of the cooperative to select new Board members as terms expire.
- Unsettled questions go to the BoardAn issue about the definition or operation of a service that cannot be settled otherwise is submitted by a member, and the Board makes and publishes a determination of policy.
- The public may commentIn hearing a question the Board makes provisions for comments by other members of the cooperative and by the general public.