End-to-End Mailing list

The IRTF's End-to-End Interest Research Group's popular mailing list, end2end-interest, is now provided as a service of the Postel Center, and has moved from its home of 16 years to postel.org. The list includes over 2,554 recipients (up from 1,350 when it moved here Jan 2001), and has been a forum for seminal work in TCP congestion control, IP multicast, resource reservation (RSVP), and a large number of other protocols and issues.

The list moved in response to an overload of unwanted automated virus warning messages. More E2E list recipients began to use automated virus scanning software, and the unfortunate default of these systems was to send warnings back even to widely-disseminated email lists. This coupled with more prevalent email infections to result in a kind of NACK-implosion of these warning messages on the E2E list. More sophisticated mailing list software and additional manual oversight was required to quench this overload.

For more information on how this and other lists at postel.org are run, please see our mailing list FAQ.

The E2E list represents a vital resource to the Internet research community, and the Postel Center is pleased to provide this service to the Internet community. Postel Center provides a home for the list (end2end-interest@postel.org), an automated management interface, and an archive with multiple indices. We also tune the list to avoid overload from automated sources and handle user requests.

The E2E list was created by Bob Braden, first chair of the E2E-RG, who managed it until 2001, when it was transferred to the Postel Center under Joe Touch. He continued to coordinate requests for posting until 2006, when Joe Touch assumed that role on behalf of the RG.

Some information, copied from our mailing list info pages:

The end2end-interest list is for discussion of research and design issues that are broadly related to the end-to-end aspects of computer networking protocols and architecture, and in particular the consequences of the end-to-end principle underlying TCP/IP. It is sponsored by the End-to-End Research Group, whose historical roots go back to the original ARPA-funded research project that developed the Internet architecture and protocols, and which now forms one group within the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF).

This list is not to be used for job announcements, and only a very few Call-for-Paper announcements are appropriate here. Posts such posts are expected to [effective 1/2007]:

• have a primary focus on E2E issues
• focus on research discussion
• be open to all participants (space permitting)

If you wish to send a CFP or any other sort of administrative announcement to this list, please check first with Joe Touch (touch@postel.org). Otherwise, don't. Additionally, for CFPs approved for posting, at most ONE call for contributions and ONE call for participation are permitted per pre-approved meeting - this includes adjunct workshops, tutorials, poster sessions, etc [effective 5/5/2003]. (UPDATED 9/22/04: two separate calls for paper are permitted where the first call for papers includes a call for proposals for workshops, to allow a second call for papers for the workshops themselves)

NOTE: Mail must be sent directly to this list, to this list alone, and not CC'd or BCC'd. This avoids cross-list clutter of replies and virus and vacation messages. For those who want to preserve the email message ID, please use a tool to send ID'd mail directly (e.g., sendmail). If you feel the need to use a long list of mail addresses, please reevaluate your decision to include end2end-interest in your list.

There is also an email-based interface for users; you can get info about using it by sending a message with just the word `help' as subject, or in the body, to: end2end-interest-request@postel.org

The end2end-interest list is currently maintained as a service of USC/ISI's Postel Center.

To see the collection of prior postings to this list, (after January 20, 2001) visit the end2end-interest Archives.

NOTE: the archive was 'cleaned' of spam on Feb. 23, 2004. The original archives back to Jan 21, 2001 are available as a single gzip'd archive (click here); if you seek a message you beleive was omitted, please check there first.

(to see the archives prior to January 20, 2001, visit ftp://ftp.isi.edu/end2end/)

An interesting bit of trivia is that it was Jon Postel, our namesake, who sent the first message to this list on Feb. 11, 1985:

11-Feb-85 16:10:11-PST,200;000000000001
Mail-From: POSTEL created at 11-Feb-85 16:10:06
Date: 11 Feb 1985 16:10:06 PST
From: POSTEL@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: Test
To: postel@USC-ISIF.ARPA


Hello.

TEST.

Bye.

- -jon.