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 Chunked files @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
17 @item Remote command execution @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
18 @item Resumable downloads @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
19 @item Packets prioritizing @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
20 @item Mail compression @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
21 @item SMTP integration @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab N/A
22 @item Push/poll @tab @strong{Both} @tab @strong{Both} @tab @strong{Both} @tab Push
23 @item DTN @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
24 @item Intended network size @tab Dozens @tab Global @tab Dozens @tab Global
25 @item Routing @tab Manual/static @tab Federated @tab Manual/static @tab Federated
26 @item PSTN support @tab @strong{Yes} @tab @strong{Yes} @tab Possible @tab No
27 @item Anonymous peers @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No @tab No @tab @strong{Yes}
28 @item Peers authentication @tab PAP @tab PAP/CHAP @tab public-key @tab No
29 @item Packets encryption @tab No @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
30 @item Metadata privacy @tab No @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
31 @item Packets integrity check @tab No @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
32 @item Sneakernet friendliness @tab No @tab No @tab @strong{Yes} @tab No
39 UUCP can be setup rather easily with few configuration files
40 and few lines in each of them. But you have to add some encryption
41 and authentication overlay for securing you data transmission.
43 FTN is hard to setup because it is totally different world of
44 software comparing to Unix one. Even mail editor will be something
45 like GoldEd, not an ordinary email client. Moreover, there is no
46 out-of-box encryption and strong authentication involved.
48 NNCP requires editing of single YAML @ref{Configuration,
51 @item News transmission
52 SMTP does not know anything about news, NNTP and so forth. Neither
53 does NNCP, because they are not used very much nowadays.
55 @item File transmission
56 SMTP could transfer files only Base64-encoding them -- this is very
60 FTN software can automatically split huge files on smaller chunks,
61 to reassemble it on the destination node. NNCP also supports
62 @ref{Chunked, that feature}, especially important when dealing with
63 small capacity removable storage devices.
65 @item Packets prioritizing
66 UUCP and NNCP will push higher priority ("grade" in UUCP
67 terminology) packets first. You mail will pass, even when many
68 gigabytes files are queued in parallel.
70 @item SMTP integration
71 Mail servers like @url{http://www.postfix.org/, Postfix} offers
72 documentation and configuration file examples how to use it with
73 UUCP. @url{http://www.exim.org/, Exim} and
74 @url{http://www.sendmail.com/sm/open_source/, Sendmail} could be
75 integrated with UUCP rather easily too. For using NNCP, just replace
76 UUCP commands with NNCP ones.
79 With SMTP, you have to wait online when remote peers will push you
80 the messages. There are extensions to the protocol allowing
81 poll-model, but they are not used everywhere. This is very important
82 to be independent from specified model and be able to exchange the
83 data with possibility you have.
85 @item @url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-tolerant_networking, DTN} (delay tolerant networking)
86 SMTP will drop messages that can not be delivered for a long time
87 (several days). Others are tolerant for the long delays.
90 UUCP and NNCP does not known nothing about routing. You have to
91 explicitly tell how to send (what hops to use) packets to each node.
94 UUCP and FidoNet always have been working with modems out-of-box.
95 Only many years later they gained support for working over TCP/IP
96 connections. SMTP works only over TCP/IP. NNCP currently has only
97 TCP daemon, but nothing prohibits using of another 8-bit aware
100 @item Anonymous peers
101 NNCP and FTN are friend-to-friend networks exclusively. This is very
102 secure and mitigates many possible man-in-the-middle (MitM) and
103 @url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack, Sybil} attacks.
105 @item Sneakernet friendliness
106 No one, except NNCP, supports data exchanging via removable storages
107 likes flash drives, CD-ROMs, tapes and hard drives out-of-box. It
108 can be emulated for many FTN software, by manually copying files in
109 its inbound/outbound directories. But UUCP and SMTP software
110 requires more manual work to do so.