Xref: utzoo comp.sources.d:1982 comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d:10
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!umd5!brl-adm!brl-smoke!w8sdz
From: w8sdz@brl-smoke.ARPA (Keith B. Petersen )
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Standard for file transmission
Message-ID: <7808@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 30 Apr 88 21:12:36 GMT
References: <292@cullsj.UUCP>
Reply-To: w8sdz@brl.arpa (Keith B. Petersen (WSMR|towson) <w8sdz>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 18
Keywords: protocol compression source
Summary: We need to clean up network errors first

Rather than discussing how to compress our files we should be discussing
how to get them transferred error-free through the network.
Uuencode/uudecode and compress/uncompress do no error checking.

Think about this the next time you are tempted to uuencode a binary
file.  How do you know it will be received error-free by the recipient?
At least when it is compressed by the ARC program a CRC of the original
file is stored *inside* the ARC.  It is checked when you extract the
member file.

The net spends thousands of dollars on reposts of truncated or otherwise
munged files.  Some of that money would be better spent on finding where
the problem is and fixing it.  A uuencode with CRC or checksum would go
a long way towards finding the site(s) responsible for this waste.
-- 
Keith Petersen
Arpa: W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA
Uucp: {bellcore,decwrl,harvard,lll-crg,ucbvax,uw-beaver}!simtel20.arpa!w8sdz
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