ietf-822
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Re: NULL

1994-10-21 17:22:22
michael(_dot_)derrico(_at_)software(_dot_)com (Michael D'Errico) writes:
First on the NULL issue, the problem seems to be moot for email TRANSPORT and
will soon only exist in user agents. 

There are significantly more user agents than transports out there,
saying the problem "only" exists in user agents is not making a strong
statement.

Zmailer, Smail, and PMDF are all
binary-transparent.  Software.com's SMTP implementation is also
binary-transparent (uses counted strings).  Also sendmail 8.7 will handle
NULL (in the message body only) and arbitrarily long lines. 

Aside from the fact that you're ignoring NUL in headers, there's a
whole lot of existing, deployed transport software that is not
included in the above list.

There are also such various and sundry things such as POP servers,
final-delivery agents (deliver, vacation), mail servers, and so on
which are likely to have problems with NUL.  Also, the existing News
transport cannot deal with NUL.

-- 
_.John G. Myers         Internet: jgm+(_at_)CMU(_dot_)EDU
                        LoseNet:  ...!seismo!ihnp4!wiscvm.wisc.edu!give!up

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