🚀 go-pugleaf

If I may say so, I found this to be an *excellent* note, not because
I agree with it (I don't), but because it made the issues clear and
tangible.

>    Several people have objected to my earlier assertion that there is
>no service provided by either Bitnet or UUCP that cannot be duplicated
>on the Internet. One of the objections is more or less well-taken, but
>two  others  perpetuate  certain  myths  about  the  Internet that are
>prevalent in the Bitnet community.
>    The one which is well-taken  is that in (very) rare  circumstances
>mail and/or files on  the Internet will be  lost due to its  lack of a
>store-and-forward capability. But this is not a very strong  objection
>since there are also circumstances in  which NJE files or mail can  be
>lost or garbled. I know of no statistics on this, but in my experience
>the Internet is more reliable.
>    The  first  of  the  myths  is  that the Internet does not provide
>sender-initiated,     no-recipient-password-required,      no-special-
>encoding/decoding-required file transfer. Look, I can send a file  via
>NJE by entering at my system prompt:
>    SEND/FILE filename recipient's-address
>But I  can also  send the  same file,  via TCP/IP  by entering  at the
>system prompt:
>    MAIL filename recipient's-address
>I initiate the  transfer in both  cases. In neither  case do I  or the
>recipient need any passwords other than our own login passwords. There
>is encoding involved in both cases, but it is done invisibly.  Neither
>I nor the  recipient need give  any special encoding  or decoding com-
>mands. In the  NJE transfer the  recipient MUST copy  the file to  his
>home directory/catalog. In  the TCP/IP transfer,  the file arrives  as
>mail in his mailbox. (He has the OPTION of moving it to another direc-
>tory, but a  simple "extract" command  does this --  and automatically
>decodes the file  to boot.)

No, no, no.  This facility DOES NOT EXIST in any of the computing world
with which I am familiar  -- VM, MVS, VAX.  In general, you can "sort
of" include a file, as long as it is a text file not requiring encoding,
and as long as line length requirements are not exceeded, etc.  Also,
the file must not include anything that could in anyway be interpreted
as mail headers, etc.  But a full blown, transparent, encoded mail
envelope of an arbitrary file is not supported.  Remember that a VM
site can send a binary or executable file to another VM site over
BITNET.  I cannot do that over the Internet except with FTP.
There are all sorts of gateway and character set issues to
resolve if files are sent as mail, such as tabs and ASCII-EBCDIC conversion,
national language conversion, etc.

Actually, I agree that the facility you describe *should* be supported,
and that it would solve the asynchonous, no-password, sender initiated
file transfer problem on the Internet.  However, I have participated
in discussions about this intermittently through the years, and there
seems to be a substantial body of opinion that mail is *not* a
satisfactory transfer agent for files.

                             The  mail programs on  some Internet nodes
>may not  make things  this easy,  but that  is a  failing of  the mail
>program, not the Internet protocol. There  is in fact a second way  to
>do file transfer on the Internet. I can use FTP to park the file on  a
>public directory of  the recipients computer,  where he can  print it,

No, no, no.  The keyword is "public".  This is not satisfactory from
a security viewpoint.

>read it, or copy it to his own directory as he likes. Or I can park it
>on a public directory  of my node and  he can FTP it  himself. In both

Once again, "public" is not satisfactory.  In addition, the transfer
is no longer sender initiated.

>cases, I initiate the transfer,  no special passwords are needed,  and
>normally no special encoding.
>    The second myth  is that the  Internet cannot provide  interactive
>messages. In  fact, it  can. And  many (most?)  Internet nodes  have a
>program, usually called PHONE or TALK, which allows conversations  be-
>tween users anywhere  in the country.  Moreover, unlike the  so-called

Again, please educate me further.  Nothing I am familiar with can do this.
Is this UNIX only?  I think VAX/VMS has PHONE, but I didn't know it would
go across the Internet.  I certainly am not familiar with a PHONE in the
IBM world.

>"interactive" messages of NJE, these conversations are in real time.