On Thu, 10 Sep 1998, Laurence Lundblade wrote:
That would be in SMTP, POP and IMAP, right? The later two are important
to end users because it will save them disk space and download time.
In fact, the TLS layer can include compression. Thus one could just do
STARTTLS to get compression in all these protocols. There are specs
nearing last call to do this. And when a security layer is active,
lower-level compression systems (e.g., modems) cease to function, so the
compression layer has to be at or above the security layer.
I worry about IMAP because I think I remember a long time ago Crispin
saying it was hard to do binary with the extent IMAP protocol syntax.
Quite the opposite, in fact. It's much easier to do pure binary using
IMAP syntax than it is using POP or SMTP syntax. I've heard the idea of a
"remove quoted-printable/base64 prior to transmission" extension to IMAP
tossed around several times.
- Chris