For certain applications such as newsletters and blogs, RSS has been
becoming popular as an alternative to email. Therefore, for specific
cases "push" email might be better than "pull".
Bruce Brown wrote:
There are times (like times of civil oppression) where I may not want a
means
of tracking e'mail back to me...less I find the secret police at my
door. I suspect
that this will lead them right to me. I also noticed that you are
encrypting and
decrypting along the way...this can be quite a drain on resources at 100
msg/sec
which is what some e'mail systems need to run at...there is also the
little goodie
that in some countries the mere encrypting of mail is a state crime --
again those
"protocol" officials will show up at your door. Breaking the forward
model of e'mail
may have consequences that need careful thought with regard to
protecting the
ability of those that need e'mail as a voice of opposition to continue
to use it.
-- Bruce
-----Original Message-----
*From:* asrg-admin(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
[mailto:asrg-admin(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org]*On Behalf
Of *Dag Kihlman
*Sent:* Tuesday, September 30, 2003 4:26 PM
*To:* asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
*Subject:* [Asrg] 6. Proposals - Let pull mail replace push mail
SMTP is a push mail system, a great thing if you are a commander in
a nuclear war, if you want to infect computers with viruses or if
you want to send a couple of million mails about magic pills. Just
throw the mail out on the Internet and let the recipients take all
administrative costs.
Today the Internet and computers are fast enough for a pull system.
In short my proposal is the introduction of a new kind of mail
program and mail system based on pull technology. Of course this is
a drastic step but I think a drastic step is much better than
numerous patches to a system ideal for misuse. I realise that the
reader will be very sceptical and see numerous problems, but I hope
that I have foreseen most problems and hopefully the most sever
objections will be answered in this proposal.
I will present my proposal while describing a mail from A to B.
When A sends a mail it goes to the mailserver owned by A's Internet
Service Provider where the mail is stored. A's mail client interacts
with the ISP's mailserver and A can see any mail that has not
reached the recipient. If the mail was sent by a virus or by a
hacker A will be able to discover the intrusion and remove the mail.
This means that viruses and hackers will not be able to hide and
viruses can be stoped, which means that viruses' ability to multiply
is greatly reduced.
As soon as A's ISP's mailserver (mailserver A) receives the mail a
notification is sent to B's ISP's mailserver (mailserver B).
Mailserver B replies with a random encryption key and Mailserver A
encryptes the mail, stores it and delets the encryption key.
The notofication message from Mailserver A contains Mailserver A's
IP-address, a mail identification number, a password, A's name and
email address and the mail subject. Each piece of information is too
short to be used for profitable spamming and it will be sent in
UTF-8 format making it easy to scan and validate.
When B connects to Mailserver B the mailserver will pass the
notification to B's mail client together with the encryption key. B
can filter the notification. When the mail is opened B's mail client
connects to Mailserver A using the IP-address, the mail id and the
password in the notification. Since the IP-address must be valid any
other certificate or verification is unnecessary. When the mail is
received the encryption key is used to decrypt it and a new
filtering can be made.
As soon as the mail is delivered it will be removed from Mailserver
A. If B wants to share the mail among several computers B must save
it on Mailserver B.
From a programmer's point of view my proposal is no difficult task.
The problem is that it is a huge revolution in the way mails are
treated. However it can co-exist with SMTP for a while since a
mailserver which supports the new system will be able to store a
SMTP mail and create a notification on the fly. It is also possible
for a mailserver to detect what kind of mail client the receiver
has. If the mailclient does not support the new system the
mailserver can pass the message the old way.
I hope that I have not troubled you with an unrealistic suggestion
and I am eager to hear any comments.
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