@node Comparison
@cindex comparison
@cindex SMTP
@cindex FTN
@cindex FidoNet
@cindex UUCP
@unnumbered Comparison with existing solutions

Here is comparison with @url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP, UUCP}
(Unix to Unix copy), FTN (@url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet, FidoNet}
Technology Networks) and @url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMTP, SMTP}
(because it is also store-and-forward solution).

@multitable @columnfractions 0.40 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15
@headitem @tab UUCP @tab FTN @tab NNCP @tab SMTP

@item Ease of setup            @tab Medium        @tab Hard          @tab Easy          @tab Hard
@item Mail transmission        @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}
@item News transmission        @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No
@item File transmission        @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No
@item Multicast transmission   @tab No            @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No
@item Chunked files            @tab No            @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No
@item Remote command execution @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No            @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No
@item Resumable downloads      @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No
@item Packets prioritizing     @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No            @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No
@item Mail compression         @tab No            @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No
@item SMTP integration         @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No            @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab N/A
@item Push/poll                @tab @strong{Both} @tab @strong{Both} @tab @strong{Both} @tab Push
@item DTN                      @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No
@item Intended network size    @tab Dozens        @tab Global        @tab Dozens        @tab Global
@item Routing                  @tab Manual/static @tab Federated     @tab Manual/static @tab Federated
@item PSTN support             @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab Possible      @tab No
@item Anonymous peers          @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No            @tab No            @tab @strong{Yes}
@item Peers authentication     @tab PAP           @tab PAP/CHAP      @tab public-key    @tab No
@item Packets encryption       @tab No            @tab No            @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No
@item Metadata privacy         @tab No            @tab No            @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No
@item Packets integrity check  @tab No            @tab No            @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No
@item Sneakernet friendliness  @tab No            @tab Partially     @tab @strong{Yes}  @tab No

@end multitable

@table @strong

@item Ease of setup
    UUCP can be setup rather easily with few configuration files
    and few lines in each of them. But you have to add some encryption
    and authentication overlay for securing you data transmission.

    FTN is hard to setup because it is totally different world of
    software comparing to Unix one. Even mail editor will be something
    like GoldEd, not an ordinary email client. Moreover, there is no
    out-of-box encryption and strong authentication involved.

    NNCP requires editing of single Hjson @ref{Configuration,
    configuration file}.

@item File transmission
    SMTP could transfer files only Base64-encoding them -- this is very
    inefficient.

@item Chunked files
    FTN software can automatically split huge files on smaller chunks,
    to reassemble it on the destination node. NNCP also supports
    @ref{Chunked, that feature}, especially important when dealing with
    small capacity removable storage devices.

@item Packets prioritizing
    UUCP and NNCP will push higher priority ("grade" in UUCP
    terminology) packets first. You mail will pass, even when many
    gigabytes files are queued in parallel.

@item SMTP integration
    Mail servers like @url{http://www.postfix.org/, Postfix} and
    @url{http://www.exim.org/, Exim} offers documentation and
    configuration file examples how to use it with UUCP.
    @url{http://www.sendmail.com/sm/open_source/, Sendmail} could be
    integrated with UUCP rather easily too. For using NNCP, just replace
    UUCP commands with NNCP ones.

@item Push/poll
    With SMTP, you have to wait online when remote peers will push you
    the messages. There are extensions to the protocol allowing
    poll-model, but they are not used everywhere. This is very important
    to be independent from specified model and be able to exchange the
    data with possibility you have.

@item @url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-tolerant_networking, DTN} (delay tolerant networking)
    SMTP will drop messages that can not be delivered for a long time
    (several days). Others are tolerant for the long delays.

@item Routing
    UUCP and NNCP does not known nothing about routing. You have to
    explicitly tell how to send (what hops to use) packets to each node.

@cindex PSTN
@item PSTN support
    UUCP and FidoNet always have been working with modems out-of-box.
    Only many years later they gained support for working over TCP/IP
    connections. SMTP works only over TCP/IP. NNCP currently has only
    TCP daemon, but nothing prohibits using of another 8-bit aware
    online transport.

@cindex anonymity
@cindex Sybil attack
@item Anonymous peers
    NNCP and FTN are friend-to-friend networks exclusively. This is very
    secure and mitigates many possible man-in-the-middle (MitM) and
    @url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack, Sybil} attacks.

@cindex sneakernet
@cindex floppynet
@item Sneakernet friendliness
    No one, except NNCP, supports data exchanging via removable storages
    likes flash drives, CD-ROMs, tapes and hard drives out-of-box. It
    can be emulated for many FTN software, by manually copying files in
    its inbound/outbound directories. But UUCP and SMTP software
    requires more manual work to do so.

@end table

@cindex UUCP commands
Also there is
@url{https://changelog.complete.org/archives/10165-asynchronous-email-exim-over-nncp-or-uucp, copy of}
comparable commands of UUCP and NNCP, just for the interest:

@multitable @columnfractions 0.5 0.25 0.25
@headitem Purpose @tab UUCP @tab NNCP

@pindex uucico
@pindex uupoll
@pindex uux
@pindex uucp
@pindex uuxqt
@item Connect to remote system
    @tab @command{uucico -s}, @command{uupoll}
    @tab @command{@ref{nncp-call}}, @command{nncp-caller}
@item Receive connection (pipe, daemon, etc)
    @tab @command{uucico} (@option{-l} or similar)
    @tab @command{@ref{nncp-daemon}}
@item Request remote execution, @code{stdin} piped in
    @tab @command{uux}
    @tab @command{@ref{nncp-exec}}
@item Copy file to remote machine
    @tab @command{uucp}
    @tab @command{@ref{nncp-file}}
@item Copy file from remote machine
    @tab @command{uucp}
    @tab @command{@ref{nncp-freq}}
@item Process received requests
    @tab @command{uuxqt}
    @tab @command{@ref{nncp-toss}}
@item Move outbound requests to dir (for USB stick, airgap, etc)
    @tab N/A
    @tab @command{@ref{nncp-xfer}}
@item Create streaming package of outbound requests
    @tab N/A
    @tab @command{@ref{nncp-bundle}}

@end multitable