Planetary Mail Protocol

Disclaimer

This essay does not describe an existing computer program, just one that should exist. This essay is about a suggested student project in Java programming. This essay gives a rough overview of how it might work. I have no source, object, specifications, file layouts or anything else useful to implementing this project. Everything I have prepared to help you is right here.

This project outline is not like the artificial, tidy little problems you are spoon-fed in school, when all the facts you need are included, nothing extraneous is mentioned, the answer is fully specified, along with hints to nudge you toward a single expected canonical solution. This project is much more like the real world of messy problems where it is up to you to fully the define the end point, or a series of ever more difficult versions of this project and research the information yourself to solve them.

Everything I have to say to help you with this project is written below. I am not prepared to help you implement it; or give you any additional materials. I have too many other projects of my own.

Though I am a programmer by profession, I don’t do people’s homework for them. That just robs them of an education.

You have my full permission to implement this project in any way you please and to keep all the profits from your endeavour.

Please do not email me about this project without reading the disclaimer above.

spam

unreliable delivery

slow

All mail is digitally signed. You know who all mail is from before you accept it or before even a byte of it is delivered. Anyone who attempts to spam knows that you rejected the email.

All mail, by default, is sent encrypted.

Mail can be sent directly to you, or via a server if your machine is offline.

All mail, including enclosures is automatically compressed and sent using the full 8-bit capacity of the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) channel.

By default, there is a fee paid by the sender to the receiver to accept each piece of mail. For most people it should balance out. For anyone sending advertising materials, it costs them. The fee can be waived.

Like a Fedex parcel, you can track where a mail message is.

to work without a server, either there will have to be a full time connection to a server, or a port open to accept calls. The second option means firewall hassle.

Everyone needs to have a digital id. Who issues these? How do you stop people getting the fraudulently? How to you stop people from gettting more than one? How to you revoke an id if someone misbehaves?

How do you introduce this new protocol? Until there are sufficient people using it, you can’t use it.

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This page is posted
on the web at:

http://mindprod.com/project/pmp.html

Optional Replicator mirror
of mindprod.com
on local hard disk J:

J:\mindprod\project\pmp.html

Please read the feedback from other visitors, or send your own feedback about the site.
Contact Roedy. Please feel free to link to this page without explicit permission.

Canadian Mind Products
IP:[65.110.21.43]
Your face IP:[18.191.233.198]

Feedback

You are visitor number