Re: T2 - Assertions and Questions

[Dan Weinreb <dlw@exceloncorp.com>]

   Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 09:49:38 -0500
   From: David Fischer <david@drummondgroup.com>

Very interesting.  It seems as if you're talking about a scenario in
which Party P publishes an address A in P's CPP, with the following
meaning: "If you want to talk to me, send your message to address A.
However, I don't promise that I'll actually receive everything that is
succesfully delivered to A."  Is that right?

That's sort of strange.  Suppose American Express said "If you want to
pay your bill, mail your bill to A", and I mail my bill to A, and then
Amex claims that they never got my bill and I own them a late charge.
I dispute the late charge, saying that I sent the bill exactly where
they told me to send it, and I have a delivery receipt from A to prove
it.

They reply that even though they published address A, they never
promised that they'd actually receive and process everything sent to
A.  Furthermore, I should not have assumed that they ever got the
bill, because I never got a delivery receipt signed by Amex's own
signature, and even though Amex publishes address A, the folks at A
are not authorized to sign Amex's signature (i.e. don't have Amex's
private key, or whatever).

So I'm stuck with a late charge, even though I behaved impeccably.

Maybe "Send the bills that you're obliged to pay to address A" is
fundamentally different from "If you want to buy something from me,
send it to address A".  I guess this is more subtle than I had realized.

-- Dan