Re: my 2 cents worth

Michael D'Errico <Mike@software.com> Tue, 07 June 1994 22:06 UTC

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To: ietf-pop3@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: my 2 cents worth
In-reply-to: <Pine.3.89.9406071652.A16154-0100000@java.cc.mcgill.ca>
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 1994 14:55:25 -0700
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From: Michael D'Errico <Mike@software.com>
Message-ID: <19940607225527.AAA3660@rome.software.com>

Ian Duncan <id@cc.mcgill.ca> wrote:
>On Tue, 7 Jun 1994, Michael D'Errico wrote:
>>
>> I think that characters from Base64 are too restrictive.  Base64 exists
>> because of the need to gateway messages between different mail systems,
>> some of which have horrible constraints.  With POP, you have an 8-bit
>> connection between client and server to work with.
>
>I think the premise that POP implies an 8 bit path between ends is a
>little dangerous. In the absence of words to the contrary in the RFC I'd 
>assume printable ascii and very selected controls.

Your selective quoting suggests that I wanted to allow 8bit characters
in the unique identifiers.  I made no such statement, and if you quoted
my next sentence that would be clear.  I wrote, "I think that Steve
Dorner's suggestion to limit the uid's to characters in the range 0x21
to 0x7e (printable 7-bit ASCII except space) is a good one."

>I know the origin of base64. I was suggesting we avoid tokens that are
>long strings of ascii and instead use very large numbers, encoded in
>base64 to keep the representation short -- 24 digits of base64 can carry
>2^144 bits in a safe, documented, well understood and easy to decode
>format. 

My MTA stores messages in separate files with pseudo-message-id's as the
filename.  These are unique for every message that comes into the system
so I would like to be able to use them as the unique identifier in the
UIDL command.  Here is how UIDL currently works on my POP server:

        C: UIDL
        S: +OK
        S: 1 19940603172145.AAA8293@ANDREW.CMU.EDU
        S: 2 19940603180614.AAA8463@mx1.cac.washington.edu
        S: 3 19940603180924.AAB8502@nic.cerf.net
        S: 4 19940603181503.AAA8771@rome.software.com
        S: .

I don't see why this is so bad.  I'd hate to force myself and others to
encode information into Base64 when there's no need to.

Michael D'Errico
mike@software.com