Here are my "givens":
* Average users cannot, and will not, tolerate FTP
* HTTP and FTP are more efficient than SMTP
* New protocols (IM2000) might be nice, but we need interoperability
* Attachments are usually MIME, with a few uuencoded ones now and then.
Methinks that it's proxy time. Why not hack the popular MTAs so that they
take attachments, spool them in a Web-accessible directory, then modify
the message.
Just like e-cards...
ATTACHMENTS:
1. http://some.domain.tld/path/to/sample/file.jpg
2. http://another.place.tld/second-attachment.doc
Go to the link, receive a warning that they must save the file after
download, that it will be deleted after successful download. Or delete it
after a few days. Or maybe users could manage their Web spool, deleting
messages as they please.
There are some details to work out, but is the "FTP upload" not a task
that we could automatically perform for users?
Eddy
message/external-body was first described in RFC1341, in June 1992. Hardly
a new idea...
/Valdis
Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 12:59:01 -0400
From: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu
message/external-body was first described in RFC1341, in June 1992.
I was not aware of that.
Hardly a new idea...
Not a new idea, but where are the implementations? 
That said, I have another RFC that I must read.
Eddy
This is actually one of the more constructive comments in the (off-topic for
nanog) thread.
I don't email is the correct vehicle for large documents (size > 1M), but
getting the public to do the correct-but-more-difficult thing is a losing
battle.
If ISPs took it upon themselves to convert attachments to http/ftp
on-the-fly and transparently to users you would have a sol'n that should
work for everyone.
Authentication could easily be added via MD5 checksums (ala ezmlm) and
encription could even be added via https.
For those of us that want to change the world, it's much easier to take
action and change the system then to try and convert all the users.
Matt
__________________________ http://www.invision.net/ _______________________
Matthew E. Martini, PE InVision.com, Inc. (631) 543-1000 x104
Chief Technology Officer matt@invision.net (631) 864-8896 Fax
_______________________________________________________________________pgp_
[ On Saturday, May 26, 2001 at 11:51:39 (-0400), Matt Martini wrote: ]
Subject: Re: Possible solution? (e-mail parcel vs. FTP)
If ISPs took it upon themselves to convert attachments to http/ftp
on-the-fly and transparently to users you would have a sol'n that should
work for everyone.
It's not the ISP's duty to solve the problem -- just to force the
solution. ISPs need only reduce the maximum message size to "what even
an extraordinary human could type in one sitting" and the rest of the
software world will respond with multitudes of solutions in the MUA.
After all the main part of the solution can only realistically be
implemented in the MUA. The ISP need only provide the HTTP (or FTP)
server in addition to the incentive.
For those of us that want to change the world, it's much easier to take
action and change the system then to try and convert all the users.
Exactly!
Note too that we can hope that most of the idiots who like to send huge
e-mail messages will also be enthralled by small devices like PDAs and
maybe this will help reduce the problem a bit.
Hi,
Methinks that it's proxy time. Why not hack the popular MTAs so that they
take attachments, spool them in a Web-accessible directory, then modify
the message.
I've given some thinking to this subject, however I thought of the
following objections:
- users do no longer have it under control (ie don't have the choice to
mail/put on web) anymore;
- confidential information *could* be stored unwantingly lang online
on the other side, it might be a good solution to give the cluefull users
a choice: ie with an extra header:
X-No-Attachment-Stealing: yes
or something like that.
