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From: booth@vax135.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.sources.wanted,comp.unix.questions,lab1135.general
Subject: General file transfer by E-mail
Message-ID: <1824@vax135.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 2-Apr-87 12:47:47 EST
Article-I.D.: vax135.1824
Posted: Thu Apr  2 12:47:47 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Apr-87 08:05:55 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ
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	WANTED: Network Independant File Transfer by Electronic Mail
	------------------------------------------------------------

The problem: how to transfer an arbitrary file from one arbitrary site
to another using existing network connections.

The only common denominator in network access is electronic mail
service; thus it makes sense to use electronic mail as a basis for
general purpose, network-independant file transfer software.

Specifically, the software should meet the following criteria:

1.  The software should be able to send a file: (a) of ANY SIZE; (b) of
ANY CONTENTS; (c) from ANY SITE to any other site that is reachable by
electronic mail.

2.  The software should use error detection and/or correction so that
the received file can be GUARANTEED CORRECT and complete, with a
negligible probability of error (if it arrives at all).  In particular,
the software must get around the various arbitrary constraints imposed
by existing mailers, such as message line and character maximums,
printable characters only, no "." alone on a line, no "from" in the
first column, etc.  In general, files will have to be encoded in a
limited "safe" character set, and mailed in pieces that are small
enough for intervening mailers to handle.  Corresponding software at
the destination site must decode and reassemble the pieces, which will
not necessarily arrive in order.

3.  It should be very EASY TO PORT the software to a new site that does
not already have it, so that no site needs to depend on another site
already having the software.  (For example, by first sending a small
receiving program, and using it to bootstrap the full software.) This
implies criterion 4 . . .

4.  The software should be COPYABLE -- either in the public domain, or
copyrighted but with explicit permission to copy being automatically
granted for appropriate use.

Does anyone know of such software?  Does anyone know of an existing
effort to write it?  Does anyone have comments on how it should be
done?

Electronic mail is already in place, and arbitrary file transfer is
such a fundamental need, it seems crazy (and frustrating!) that we
still must revert to the stone age practice of writing and shipping
magnetic tapes.
			David Booth
	UUCP: {harvard, seismo, ucbvax}!vax135!booth
	Arpanet: vax135!booth@ucbvax.berkeley.edu