High Voltage Shareware/high1.zip/high1/DIR10/TPC_RC01.ZIP/TPC-RP.ANN

Internet Message Format | 1993-08-05 | 20KB

Date:     Mon Jul 19, 1993 12:18 pm  EST
Source-Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 08:44:23 -0700
From:     tpc rp
          EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
          MBX: [e-mail]

TO:       David E. McDysan / MCI ID: 280-6303
TO:     * Robert G. Moskowitz / MCI ID: 385-8921
TO:       Kelly Jackson / MCI ID: 407-3507
TO:       Johna Johnson / MCI ID: 414-3837
TO:       RND Inc. / MCI ID: 439-3582
TO:       Mary Jander / MCI ID: 473-4998
TO:       Christopher Zguris / MCI ID: 485-4540
TO:       Salvatore Salamone / MCI ID: 537-9565
TO:       Blair Sanders
          EMS: TI / MCI ID: 400-6329
          MBX: SU=Sanders
          MBX: GI=Blair
TO:       Bob Stine / MCI ID: 421-9666
TO:       Mustafa Soysal / MCI ID: 331-0988
TO:       owen
          EMS: WRQ / MCI ID: 438-1282
          MBX: owen
TO:       Scott Brigham / MCI ID: 244-2341
TO:       Arlington Hewes
          EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
          MBX: [e-mail]
Subject:  An Experiment in remote printing
Message-Id: 73930719171837/0003765414NA1EM
Source-Msg-Id: <[e-mail]>


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At the IETF meeting last Friday, I made a presentation on "An Experiment
in Remote Printing".  Here is the FAQ on the experiment.

/mtr

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To: [e-mail]
from: Arlington Hewes <[e-mail]>
Subject: FAQ for "An Experiment in Remote Printing"
Content-Description: An Experiment in Remote Printing
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----- =_aaaaaaaaaa0"
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 08:39:35 -0700
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]

               Table of Contents

part  type/subtype              size description
      multipart/mixed            14K An Experiment in Remote Printing
1     multipart/mixed           1943 General Information
1.1   text/plain                 431 What is this experiment, anyway?
1.2   text/plain                 848 Outreach?  What are you really doing?
1.3   text/plain                  96 How can I keep informed?
1.4   text/plain                  36 By the way, how can I get another copy ...
2     multipart/mixed           7148 How can I send something?
2.1   text/plain                 286 What's the simplest way?
2.2   text/plain                 710 Fine, what does this mean?
2.3   text/plain                1099 What about the rest of it?
2.4   text/plain                 688 Gee, is there global coverage already?
2.5   text/plain                1401 "Cells"?
2.6   text/plain                 291 How can I find out if there is access ...
2.7   text/plain                 525 Suppose I want to send images instead ...
2.8   text/plain                 902 Suppose I want a lot of information on ...
2.9   text/plain                  63 Is there software to help me compose ...
3     multipart/mixed           5210 What does it take to run a cell?
3.1   text/plain                 275 Suppose I want to operate a remote ...
3.2   text/plain                 177 Is there a document describing the ...
3.3   multipart/mixed           2094 Tell me about the policy
3.3.1 text/plain                 403 Who sets policy?
3.3.2 text/plain                  88 What do Malamud and Rose get out of this?
3.3.3 text/plain                 206 What is this policy?
3.3.4 text/plain                 494 What about now?
3.3.5 text/plain                 313 What about privacy?
3.4   text/plain                 232 Who can I contact for administrative ...
3.5   multipart/mixed           1689 Tell me about the connectivity and ...
3.5.1 text/plain                 335 If I want to run a remote printer ...
3.5.2 text/plain                 396 Is there software available?
3.5.3 text/plain                 510 What's in the openly-available software?
4     text/plain                  70 Just who is this Arlington Hewes anyway...


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Content-Description: General Information

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: What is this experiment, anyway?

The experiment is a project in outreach: to integrate the e-mail and
facsimile communities.

Many sites cooperatively provide "remote printing" access to the
international telephone network.  This allows people to send faxes via
e-mail.  The general-purpose Internet e-mail infrastructures takes care
of all the routing, delivering the message to the appropriate remote
printer gateway in a manner totally transparent to the user.

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Content-Description: Outreach?  What are you really doing?

We believe that by providing easy access to remote printing recipients,
enterprise-wide access is enhanced, regardless of kind of institution
(e.g., commercial, educational, or government), or the size of
institution (e.g., global, regional, or local).  This approach at
outreach allows an organization to make it easier for the "outside
world" to communicate with personnel in the organization who are
users of facsimile but not e-mail, such as the sales person, the
university registrar, or the (elected) official.  The ease in which the
Internet mail infrastructure can be used to provide this facility is
(yet) another example of the power of a general-purpose
infrastructure.

Of course, as the experiment progresses, some of the things we'll be
studying are economic and policy models that deal with issues such
as accounting and settlement.

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: How can I keep informed?

There's a mailing list.

Send a note to

    [e-mail]

and ask to be added.

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: By the way, how can I get another copy of this FAQ?

Send mail to [e-mail].

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Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----- =_aaaaaaaaaa2"
Content-Description: How can I send something?

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: What's the simplest way?

Is this simple enough?

    To: remote-printer.Arlington_Hewes/Room_403@0.1.5.2.8.6.9.5.1.4.1.tpc.int

This will get automatically routed to a remote printer server, which
will transmit a facsimile to the recipient.  When the transmission
completes, a message will be sent back to you!

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: Fine, what does this mean?

Let's look at the strings on either side of the '@'-sign.

The left-hand part identifies the kind of access (remote-printer) along
with the identity of the recipient (Arlington_Hewes/Room_403).

Because some mailers have difficulty dealing with addresses that
contain spaces, etc., you should be very careful as to what characters
you use to identify the recipient.  It safest to use upper and lower
case letters, digits, and two special characters ('_' and '/').

When a cover sheet is generated, the '_' will turn into a space and the
'/' will turn into a end-of-line sequence.  So, given the address
above, the cover sheet might start with

    Please deliver this facsimile to:

    Arlington Hewes
    Room 403

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Content-Description: What about the rest of it?

The right-hand part identifies the telephone number of the
remote-printer.  It must be an international telephone number.

Telephone numbers are usually written like this:

    +code-number

where "code" identifies the country and "number" is the telephone
number within the country, e.g.,

    [phone]

(For those interested in trivia, the maximum number of digits is 15.)

In order to get the Internet e-mail infrastructure to automatically
route messages, the punctuation characters are stripped out, e.g.,

    14159681052

and then the string is inverted and turned into an Internet domain
name, e.g.,

    0.1.5.2.8.6.9.5.1.4.1.tpc.int

This approach allows us to map from the Internet naming scheme onto the
entire international telephone network.  And, as you might expect, you
can mix remote-printing and e-mail recipients in the same message, e.g.,

    To: remote-printer.Arlington_Hewes/Room_403@0.1.5.2.8.6.9.5.1.4.1.tpc.int
    cc: Marshall Rose <[e-mail]>

(In fact, the replies generated by the e-mail recipients can even go to
the remote-printing recipients!)

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: Gee, is there global coverage already?

Get real.

The official kick-off of the experiment was 16 July 1993.  However, at
present, there is access available for:

    - all of Australia
    - all of Washington, DC
    - most of Silicon Valley
    - parts of Riverside
    - and all of the University of Michigan

In addition, we expect the following countries to come online later in
the summer of 1993:

    - Denmark
    - Finland
    - Ireland
    - Japan
    - Sweden

along with several enterprises such as companies and government R&D
centers.

The basic idea is that each participating site registers a "cell"
indicating the portion of the international telephone number space that
they are willing to provide access to.

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Content-Description: "Cells"?

Well, we call them cells.

The idea is that there are really four kinds of participating sites:

    - neighborhood sites
    - regional sites
    - enterprise sites
    - personal sites

A neighborhood site is someone who provides access to any facsimile
machines in its "local calling area".  The idea being that metered
access to this area is fairly inexpensive, and the site is willing to
provide access as a part of their community spirit.  Access to Silicon
Valley is provided by several neighboord sites.

A regional site is basically just a large neighborhood site, usually
providing access to an entire country or a large part of a country,
such as an area code.  The interesting thing to note is that
neighborhood sites may choose to shrink or expand their cell, depending
on factors such as demand and cost.

An enterprise site is a company that provides access solely to its own
facsimile machines.  They register exactly those telephone prefixes
which apply to their enterprise.  The University of Michigan is an
example of this.  Of course, a geographically-disperse enterprise such
as a multi-national company could also do this.

A personal site is someone who provides access to exactly one facsimile
machine, usually one that resides on their desktop.  In this case, when
the remote printer server gets the message, it will just deliver it to
the owner of the desktop--via e-mail.

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: How can I find out if there is access to a particular number?

If you're a guru, it's simple; if not, well...

A graphical tool will be available later this summer.  For now, there's
a command-line tool available, e.g.,

    % rpvalidate [phone]
    accessible

The section below on "Is there software available?" will tell you where
to find it.

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: Suppose I want to send images instead of text?

Use MIME.

MIME is the Internet-standards track technology for multi-media
messaging.  In fact, this FAQ is formatted using MIME.

When remote-printing, at a minimum, the following MIME content types
are supported:

    - text/plain
    - message/rfc822
    - application/postscript
    - image/tiff
    - multipart

So, you might send something like the following:

    To: remote-printer.Arlington_Hewes/Room_403@0.1.5.2.8.6.9.5.1.4.1.tpc.int
    MIME-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: application/postscript

    %!
    ...


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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: Suppose I want a lot of information on the cover sheet?

You want a lot of things don't you.

Anyway, a MIME content-type has been defined for this.  It's called

    application/remote-printing

Here's an example:

    Content-Type: application/remote-printing

    Recipient:    Marshall Rose
    Title:        Principal
    Organization: Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.
    Address:      420 Whisman Court
                  Mountain View, CA  94043-2186
                  US
    Telephone:    [phone]
    Facsimile:    [phone]

    Originator:   John Q. Public
    Organization: The Public Domain
    Telephone:    [phone]
    Facsimile:    [phone]
    EMail:        "John Q. Public" <[e-mail]>

    Any text appearing here would go on the cover-sheet.

This must be the very first content in your MIME message.  Also, if you
use this, then the left-hand part of the recipient's address should just
be "remote-printer".

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: Is there software to help me compose messages like this?

Yes.

See the section below on "Is there software available?".

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Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----- =_aaaaaaaaaa3"
Content-Description: What does it take to run a cell?

------- =_aaaaaaaaaa3
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: Suppose I want to operate a remote printer server?

You need four things:

    - a computer on the IP-connected Internet
    - a fax modem and phone line
    - fax spooling software
    - glue software

You also need to agree to operate the cell in a fashion consistent with
the policies associated with the "tpc.int." domain.

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: Is there a document describing the technical details?

Yes.

A document has been submitted to the RFC editor for publication as an
experimental RFC.  In the future, there will probably be several
documents, including one on policy.

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Content-Description: Tell me about the policy

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: Who sets policy?

At present, the policy is set by the two people running the experiment,
Carl Malamud of the Internet Multicasting Service, a non-profit,
organization, and Marshall Rose of Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.  (Rose
spends half of his time on openly-available projects, of which this is
one.)

In the near future, an oversight board will be established which will
formulate and publish administrative policies.

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Content-Description: What do Malamud and Rose get out of this?

An indictment by a federal grand jury.  Just kidding.  Ha, ha.

They're doing research.

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: What is this policy?

Ultimately, it's all about establishing these basic principles:

    - Functionality
    - Fairness
    - Cost Recovery
    - Performance
    - Efficiency
    - Security
    - Legality
    - Extendibility


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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: What about now?

For now, there's one simple rule:

    - it is perfectly acceptable to deny access on the basis of originator
      identity, but it is not acceptable to deny access on the basis of
      recipient identity

The reason for this is simple: if a site finds that some originator is
acting in an abusive manner, then the site can deny access.  But, when
a site registers a cell, it agrees to provide access to every telephone
number in that cell.  Of course, it can always register a smaller
cell.

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: What about privacy?

There are strict rules as to the kind of auditing information which a
remote printer server may keep.  Basically, this information is
necessary for debugging purposes, e.g., if you send a message and don't
get a completion or failure acknowledgement later on, the site
providing access may need to check into it.

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: Who can I contact for administrative questions?

Arlington Hewes <[e-mail]>

Mr. Hewes is a busy man, so before sending him a note, please consider
whether the general discussion list ([e-mail]) mentioned
earlier might not be a more appropriate forum.

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Content-Description: Tell me about the connectivity and software requirements

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: If I want to run a remote printer server, do I really need an IP-connected machine?

Not really.

Technically, just about any computer on the Internet could run a remote
printer server.  However, we recommend that the computer have
IP-connectivity, since this makes it easier to check things out when
there's a problem.

The more important requirement is that you have fax spooling software
available for your computer.

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: Is there software available?

Yes.

An openly-available implementation can be found on

    site: ftp.ics.uci.edu
    area: mrose/tpc
    file: rp.tar.Z

be sure to retrieve it in BINARY mode, eh?

In addition, if you're running Innosoft's PMDF software for OpenVMS,
then you can contact them at [e-mail] for the details.

If you're a vendor who adds support for remote-printing to your
software, we want to hear from you.

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: What's in the openly-available software?

It contains pointers to existing openly-available software along with
some "glue" software for BSD-derived UNIX systems.

For sites that want to run remote printer servers, there is support for
both the openly-available FlexFAX package and the Bristol Group's IsoFax
product.

For sites that want to use remote printing, there are some scripts,
primarily for MH users.

If you are willing to contribute to the openly-available software package
(e.g., if you've written a Mac client), we want to hear from you.

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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: Just who is this Arlington Hewes anyway, and what does TPC stand for?

Go rent the film "The President's Analyst", Paramount Pictures, 1967.

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