2 @unnumbered Comparison with existing solutions
4 Here is comparison with @url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP, UUCP}
5 (Unix to Unix copy), FTN (@url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet,
6 FidoNet} Technology Networks) and @url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMTP, SMTP}
7 (because it is also store-and-forward solution).
9 @multitable @columnfractions 0.40 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15
10 @headitem @tab UUCP @tab FTN @tab NNCP @tab SMTP
12 @item Ease of setup @tab Medium @tab Hard @tab Easy @tab Hard
13 @item Mail transmission @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes}
14 @item News transmission @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No @tab No
15 @item File transmission @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
16 @item Remote command execution @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No @tab No @tab No
17 @item Resumable downloads @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
18 @item Packets prioritizing @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
19 @item Mail compression @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
20 @item SMTP integration @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab N/A
21 @item Push/poll @tab @strong{Both} @tab @strong{Both} @tab @strong{Both} @tab Push
22 @item Delay tolerant @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
23 @item Intended network size @tab Dozens @tab Global @tab Dozens @tab Global
24 @item Routing @tab Manual/static @tab Automatic @tab Manual/static @tab Automatic
25 @item PSTN support @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab Possible @tab No
26 @item Anonymous peers @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No @tab No @tab @strong{Yes}
27 @item Peers authentication @tab PAP @tab PAP/CHAP @tab public-key @tab No
28 @item Packets encryption @tab No @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
29 @item Metadata privacy @tab No @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
30 @item Packets integrity check @tab No @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
31 @item Sneakernet friendliness @tab No @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
38 UUCP can be setup rather easily with few configuration files
39 and few lines in each of them. But you have to add some encryption
40 and authentication overlay for securing you data transmission.
42 FTN is hard to setup because it is totally different world of
43 software comparing to Unix one. Even mail editor will be something
44 like GoldEd, not an ordinary email client. Moreover, there is no
45 out-of-box encryption and strong authentication involved.
47 NNCP requires single YAML file editing and nothing more.
49 @item News transmission
50 SMTP does not know anything about news, NNTP and so forth. Neither
51 does NNCP, because they are not used very much nowadays.
53 @item File transmission
54 SMTP could transfer files only Base64-encoding them -- this is very
57 @item Packets prioritizing
58 UUCP and NNCP will push higher priority ("grade" in UUCP
59 terminology) packets first. You mail will pass, even when many
60 gigabytes files is queued in parallel.
62 @item SMTP integration
63 Mail servers like @url{http://www.postfix.org/, Postfix} offers
64 documentation and configuration file examples how to use it with
65 UUCP. @url{http://www.exim.org/, Exim} and
66 @url{http://www.sendmail.com/sm/open_source/, Sendmail} could be
67 integrated with UUCP rather easily too. For using NNCP, just replace
68 UUCP commands with NNCP ones.
71 With SMTP, you have to wait online when remote peers will push you
72 the messages. There are extensions to the protocol allowing
73 poll-model, but they are not used everywhere. This is very important
74 to be independent from specified model and be able to exchange the
75 data with possibility you have.
78 SMTP will drop messages that can not be delivered for a long time
79 (several days). Others are
80 @url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-tolerant_networking,
81 tolerant} for the long delays.
84 UUCP and NNCP does not known nothing about routing. You have to
85 explicitly tell how to send (what hops to use) packets to each node.
88 UUCP and FidoNet always have been working with modems out-of-box.
89 Only many years later they gained support for working over TCP/IP
90 connections. SMTP works only over TCP/IP. NNCP currently has only
91 TCP daemon, but nothing prohibits using of another 8-bit aware
95 NNCP and FTN are friend-to-friend networks exclusively. This is very
96 secure and mitigates many possible man-in-the-middle attacks.
98 @item Sneakernet friendliness
99 No one, except NNCP, supports data exchanging via removable storages
100 likes flash drives, CD-ROMs, tapes and hard drives. It can be
101 emulated for many FTN software, by manually copying files in its
102 inbound/outbound directories. But UUCP and SMTP software requires
103 more manual work to do so.