RFC 1728 (rfc1728) - Page 1 of 6

Resource Transponders

Network Working Group                                          C. Weider
Request for Comments: 1728                    Bunyip Information Systems
Category: Informational                                    December 1994


                         Resource Transponders

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  This memo
   does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of
   this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   Although a number of systems have been created in the last several
   years to provide resource location and navigation on the Internet,
   the information contained in these systems must be maintained and
   updated by hand.  This paper describes an automatic mechanism, the
   resource transponder, for maintaining resource location information.

Author's Note:

   This document is being circulated as sort of a research paper;
   consequently there are no protocol specifications or anything of the
   sort.  I hope that we can go from here and actually design them if
   there's consensus that they are potentially useful. Once we have some
   idea of the required functionality, we can then go out and
   standardize them.

Disclaimer

   This paper represents only the opinions of the author; it does not
   represent the consensus of the IIIR Working Group, although it is
   recognized by them as one legitimate approach to a solution of the
   problem.

1. Introduction

   In the past few years, we've seen the invention and growth of a
   number of information location systems on the Internet, e.g., archie,
   Gopher, and WAIS.  However, as these systems have become widely
   deployed, a number of maintenance and security problems have arisen
   with them.  Some of the major ones:

   1) Out of necessity, most of these systems contain pointers to the
      desired resources rather than the resources themselves. Therefore,
      if a resource becomes obsolete, is modified, or is moved, the



Weider