Message addressing schemes

One of the most important problems in electronic mail systems is the specification of names and addresses in the messages [13, 14]. In many current message systems this problem is handled in a specific but narrow manner [2]. However, it is important to abstract the problem and to deal with it independently, without any consideration of the physical routing of the messages. It can be argued that the only addressing problem in electronic mail systems is co associate the attributes of a person to a unique id. However, there are cases where the originator of the mail cannot quite determine or indicate the proper recipients. In addition, we want to incorporate intelligence used by persons handling mail (e.g., secretaries). A sophisticated mail addressing scheme should attempt to deal with such intelligence in order to automate certain mail procedures. Consider a message system consisting of messages, addresses, persons receiving messages, and stations routing the messages. An addressing scheme is any way of specifying and interpreting information on messages so as to finally bring them to the attention of the proper recipients. In this paper we shall identify different addressing schemes and investigate their properties. To illustrate the differences in addressing schemes, consider three different paradigms. As a first example, consider the manner in which letters are addressed in regular post office mail. The addressing scheme assumes the existence of a hierarchical structure of mail stations and addresses (country, state, city, street,