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November 18, 2005
Changing SMTP?
Many of the basic institutions and standards of the Internet were applied in a very different environment. It was an environment were very few persons could set the standards. Solutions that worked then have started to age quite a lot.
Some changes could indeed be necessary rather soon, since so much of the Internet has changed through the rapid development in recent years. For instance the SMTP-protocol (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) for sending e-mail and with SMTP servers connected to given domain names. SMTP was implemented back in the 80’s where there was no such thing as virus, spam or a need for authentication of senders. Modifying SMTP extensively, or replacing it completely, could be difficult, due to the network effects of the huge installed base of SMTP. We do see some new alternatives, mainly with Daniel J. Bernstein's Internet Mail 2000. Several attempts have been made to design and to implement a real Internet Mail 2000 system, with varying degrees of success. There is, as yet, no concrete implementation of the system- but the discussion should be started now.
Posted by Waldemar at November 18, 2005 05:16 PM