[nos-bbs] case sensitivity of MID/BID - discussion needed

[Gustavo Ponza]

On Mon, 2015-02-09 at 10:46 -0800, Michael E Fox - N6MEF wrote:
> Gus,
> 
> I don't follow what you're saying.
> 
> This is not just an academic discussion.  There IS a problem.  There was a
> recent case here in NorCal where a single message was forwarded over two
> paths.  The MID arriving at the BPQ station over one path was lower case.
> It was upper case from the other path.
> 
> So, the question is what to do about it. 
> 
> One of the earlier emails said that FBB's comparison is case-sensitive.  But
> the example I saw showed that FBB changed the case of the incoming MID from
> lower to upper case when forwarding to the BPQ station.  Apparently we don't
> have all the facts.
> 
> M

Michael,

the wrong side is not that of FBB which force the change to upper case
or the JNOS2 which force the change to lower case but it is on the BPQ
side which do not treat or do not manage/understand the fact that if my
message arrive from a side as 12345_i0ojj and in another side arrive as
12345_I0OJJ it is the same identical message and so the second one
joining that system must be discarded i.e. 'FBB response FS -'

Observing from another angle, the rule is that: saying 12345_i0ojj
or saying 12345_I0OJJ *should represent exactly the same thing* and
NOT two different items: any different interpretation of that rule
do not make sense for *our BBS purposes*, or also dangerous: imagine
the collapse produced by a multi-message declined as per my previous
unix/linux example :)

Now, FBB and JNOS2 must not be changed at all because if they receive
from different sides the following MIB/BID:

12345_i0ojj
12345_I0OJJ
12345_I0ojj
12345_I0Ojj

do not consider FOUR different messages but exactly the same message
so only the first will be accepted on the PMS and any other joined
later discarded.

Hope that this msg is a bit less academic :)

gus