Netmail PING/TRACE

TRACE is about transit only. It is never about a node answering its own ping — a node can answer in a minute and still read nothing of ours has passed through it. Only systems on 2:5001/100's own routes can ever be crossed, so most TRACE nodes stay untested by construction rather than by fault, and the verdict pairs paths from the last 90 days with the flags on the current nodelist.

Refused means a robot told us the message was deleted rather than answered, so the ping is closed at once instead of waiting out the window. It is never counted as an answer, however it is worded, and it earns no TRACE credit: notifying the sender while deleting the mail is not what FTS-4010 asks, which is to notify and forward the original unaltered. A refusal from a system merely on the way means the ping never reached the node at all.

Not tested means no netmail was sent to that address at all. Some systems hold several addresses and answer for all of them through one, so pinging the others would put extra mail in one sysop's inbox for an answer that cannot say which address was asked. Those sets are declared rather than guessed: two systems with one sysop, one host and one hostname apiece can still differ in whether they answer per-address, so the row names the address that answers on their behalf.

Unsecure describes how the ANSWER reached us, not which way the ping went out and not whether the ping itself was direct-dialled (that is labelled on each node's own page). It means the session that delivered the answer was not a password-protected link of ours, so nothing on the wire tells us which system handed the mail over: the answering node may have connected to 2:5001/100 itself, or one of its uplinks may have, or it may have come back on a link-less session either side placed. What it does mean is that such a reply's sender address is a claim rather than proof, so an answer is never credited on the strength of that address alone. The ^AVia chain on the node's page shows the route the answer took, but that chain is written by the relays themselves, so it is read as their account of the trip, not as proof of the last hop.