Subj : Netmail in the insecure inbound
To   : Oli
From : Alan Ianson
Date : Mon May 03 2021 16:04:44

Hello Oli,

 AI>> The questions is "is it desirable to decompress those packets" in
 AI>> the insecure inbound.

 Ol> Can it be automatically unpacked without any security issues (there
 Ol> can be any file in the archive).

Yes, it can be. My tosser does that (compress/decompress) all day long. Every tosser I have used does that, that is not an issue.

The question I am considering is the above. Do we want to decompress those packets in the insecure inbound". Currently hpt tosses uncompressed packets in the insecure inbound. The issue arises when netmail is compressed in an arcmail bundle. hpt checks the mail and finds it has come from an unknown node and leaves it in the inbound so I need to decompress it from the command line and hpt will then toss it.

 Ol> Pre-compressed mail bundles are mostly useless in this scenario.

Why are they useless? They contain packets that contain mail that needs to be tossed. They are just as useful today as they were in 1995.

 Ol> Files can be compressed on the fly over the binkp protocol.

Yes, this is my preferred method today and I use this method with several nodes that also use it. It's not well supported outside of binkd, at least not yet.

 Ol> Just reject any insecure compressed mail bundles, problem gone.

Mail arrives in my inbound as other nodes prepare it and I must deal with it as it is. I receive many compressed mail bundles and I do not want/need to reject them.

 Ttyl :-),
         Al
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