11 ms·

Everybody knows that SMTP is old, inefficient (hey, it’s nearly plain-text!), insecure, diversified (so many different servers to choose from!) and generally ju

Everybody knows that SMTP is old, inefficient (hey, it’s nearly plain-text!), insecure, diversified (so many different servers to choose from!) and generally just bad. Clearly a closed web interface that only runs in Chrome would be much better for everyone! Then people could always be sure with whom they communicate, nobody could hack or social-engineer their way into other accounts, and everyone would have to follow The Rules or they’ll have their account closed for good.

charlesjshort 13y ago
Bill Gates is a goy so he can not be king of the internet. But Google would make a good king, so just bow down.
- laurentb 13y ago
  wtf is that supposed to mean?
  - charlesjshort 13y ago
    This a reference to the "Protocols."
laumars 13y ago
SMTP is worse than plain text. It's plain text and base64 (which increases file sizes by ~30%). It's a horrid protocol, but sadly it's what we're currently stuck with. But this is all moot as the article is about XMPP, WebDav and RSS. The SMTP headline is nothing more than clickbait.
- UnoriginalGuy 13y ago
  People keep banging on about "plain text, plain text" what is wrong with plain text? And what is wrong with SMTP? Also email attachments can be binary encoded, base64 is just one option. People are free to say that SMTP is "bad" or "broken" but they have to say exactly why that is the case. And "there are multiple different implementations" is a pretty poor justification, as a SMTP replacement would likely have the same issue (or worse).
  - laumars 13y ago
    > People keep banging on about "plain text, plain text" what is wrong with plain text? Well it's not exactly secure, for one thing. > Also email attachments can be binary encoded, base64 is just one option. base64 is a method for encoding binary. You cannot send raw binary other ASCII - which is why base64 is used in SMTP. > People are free to say that SMTP is "bad" or "broken" but they have to say exactly why that is the case. Actually I have given a long list of reasons every time I've complained about SMTP[1][2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5510910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5510910 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5297472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5297472
    - UnoriginalGuy 13y ago
      >Well it's not exactly secure, for one thing. No more or less secure than HTTP/HTTPS. In fact exactly as secure as... >base64 is a method for encoding binary. You cannot send raw binary other ASCII - which is why base64 is used in SMTP. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3030 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3030 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2045 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2045 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME#Content-Transfer-Encoding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME#Content-Transfer-Encoding >Actually I have given a long list of reasons every time I've complained about SMTP >https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5510910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5510910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5297472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5297472 Your list is full of misinformation. - Base64 thing is nonsense. As already stated SMTP supports binary and has for a long time. - SMTPS is fairly well supported. In fact I currently connect to nothing which lacks it, and my email client auto-selects it when setting up new connections. Most of the hosts as far as I know support SMTPS out-of-the-box. - SMTP reply codes are standardised (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1893.txt http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1893.txt) - HTML is standardised. - SMTP is not designed to be real-time. That is what IM is designed to provide.
      - laumars 13y ago
        > No more or less secure than HTTP/HTTPS. In fact exactly as secure as... HTTPS is end to end encryption. In the instances that SMTP traffic is encrypted, it's only node to node. So SMTPS is less secure than HTTPS. > http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3030 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3030 It's still not /the/ standard though, just /a/ standard; and one that's not particularly well supported in my experience. Most of the SMTP servers I've dealt with have archived and transmitted binary content over base64. > Your list is full of misinformation. Please don't be rude. And to address your bullet points: - already addressed the binary / base64 remark - already addressed the SMTPS remark - yes, but those response codes are rarely transmitted back up the stack (and when they are, with a horribly garbled error). I'm talking about rebuilding the entire stack - from client to server - so that users get meaningful responses. - of course HTTP is standardised. I never said it wasn't. So please don't turn this into a dumb trolling match where you make shit up to win an argument. - I know SMTP isn't designed to be real time. But there's absolutely no reason why e-mails shouldn't be real time in the modern world. Simply citing IM's as an argument misses the point. IM's are for conversations. Emails are for memos. There's no reason why memo's shouldn't be sent real time. In fact, Android's Gmail notifications are real time. Exchange pushes mail to Outlook clients in real time. There's no reason why real-time shouldn't be the standard for all e-mails. (note: we're not talking about real time character update. Just a standard system for pushing messages instead of the client periodically polling for updates).
- stefantalpalaru 13y ago
  woosh!
- fulafel 13y ago
  ASCII also increases "file size" by about 30% (using 8 bits per character where 6 would suffice). A better optimization than diligent bit-packing is a stateful compression system such as deflate. In addition to doing real compression, it will take care of any wasted bits in ASCII andd Base64 (latter being a MIME feature btw, not SMTP). I don't know if people usually run SMTP with TLS compression enabled - if not they probably aren't too worried about the wasted bits.
- nollidge 13y ago
  Sarcasm is clickbait now?
- wtbob 13y ago
  > But this is all moot as the article is about XMPP, WebDav and RSS. The SMTP headline is nothing more than clickbait. Not really. SMTP derives most of its utility from federation, and XMPP could have done the same. Of course, this is nothing new: NNTP was replaced by a million forums, XMPP federation never really took hold, and no doubt someday mail federation will die too. It's a crying shame, it really is.
ajross 13y ago
Arrgh. Title is total link bait. There is no news about SMTP here. The linked blog post is whining about XMPP, which is not being disabled. Apparently the author is a user of "XMPP Federation" (the ability to link XMPP servers together a-la IRC), which is also not being disabled. But apparently it might be someday, as the new Hangouts stuff won't support it. So how did we get form "can't talk to your Hangout via an XMPP client" to "Google will disable SMTP"? Really folks, this site used to be better about this stuff...
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  1. Looking at the other threads I can't quite get a straight answer on XMPP, but it seems to be entirely disabled for the "new communications product called Hangouts" (new??), but this is not just about federation. 2. claudius is very clearly explaining why google SHOULD disable SMTP. Nobody has seriously suggested they would; you might need to recalibrate your satire detector. Also claudius gave several reasons that apply equally to XMPP and SMTP to be extra helpful. :)
  - andrewguenther 13y ago
    It is not available in Hangouts, but it will continue to be supported "for the foreseeable future" in GTalk.
    - tankenmate 13y ago
      Except that GTalk is now being deprecated on Android and being replaced with the new version of Hangouts...
    - fdr_cs 13y ago
      Just like reader, right ?
- duaneb 13y ago
  I don't think they would kill SMTP, but I also didn't think they would kill CalDav.

charlesjshort 13y ago

Bill Gates is a goy so he can not be king of the internet. But Google would make a good king, so just bow down.

laurentb 13y ago
wtf is that supposed to mean?
- charlesjshort 13y ago
  This a reference to the "Protocols."

laumars 13y ago

SMTP is worse than plain text. It's plain text and base64 (which increases file sizes by ~30%). It's a horrid protocol, but sadly it's what we're currently stuck with. But this is all moot as the article is about XMPP, WebDav and RSS. The SMTP headline is nothing more than clickbait.

UnoriginalGuy 13y ago
People keep banging on about "plain text, plain text" what is wrong with plain text? And what is wrong with SMTP? Also email attachments can be binary encoded, base64 is just one option. People are free to say that SMTP is "bad" or "broken" but they have to say exactly why that is the case. And "there are multiple different implementations" is a pretty poor justification, as a SMTP replacement would likely have the same issue (or worse).
- laumars 13y ago
  > People keep banging on about "plain text, plain text" what is wrong with plain text? Well it's not exactly secure, for one thing. > Also email attachments can be binary encoded, base64 is just one option. base64 is a method for encoding binary. You cannot send raw binary other ASCII - which is why base64 is used in SMTP. > People are free to say that SMTP is "bad" or "broken" but they have to say exactly why that is the case. Actually I have given a long list of reasons every time I've complained about SMTP[1][2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5510910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5510910 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5297472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5297472
  - UnoriginalGuy 13y ago
    >Well it's not exactly secure, for one thing. No more or less secure than HTTP/HTTPS. In fact exactly as secure as... >base64 is a method for encoding binary. You cannot send raw binary other ASCII - which is why base64 is used in SMTP. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3030 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3030 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2045 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2045 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME#Content-Transfer-Encoding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME#Content-Transfer-Encoding >Actually I have given a long list of reasons every time I've complained about SMTP >https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5510910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5510910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5297472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5297472 Your list is full of misinformation. - Base64 thing is nonsense. As already stated SMTP supports binary and has for a long time. - SMTPS is fairly well supported. In fact I currently connect to nothing which lacks it, and my email client auto-selects it when setting up new connections. Most of the hosts as far as I know support SMTPS out-of-the-box. - SMTP reply codes are standardised (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1893.txt http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1893.txt) - HTML is standardised. - SMTP is not designed to be real-time. That is what IM is designed to provide.
    - laumars 13y ago
      > No more or less secure than HTTP/HTTPS. In fact exactly as secure as... HTTPS is end to end encryption. In the instances that SMTP traffic is encrypted, it's only node to node. So SMTPS is less secure than HTTPS. > http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3030 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3030 It's still not /the/ standard though, just /a/ standard; and one that's not particularly well supported in my experience. Most of the SMTP servers I've dealt with have archived and transmitted binary content over base64. > Your list is full of misinformation. Please don't be rude. And to address your bullet points: - already addressed the binary / base64 remark - already addressed the SMTPS remark - yes, but those response codes are rarely transmitted back up the stack (and when they are, with a horribly garbled error). I'm talking about rebuilding the entire stack - from client to server - so that users get meaningful responses. - of course HTTP is standardised. I never said it wasn't. So please don't turn this into a dumb trolling match where you make shit up to win an argument. - I know SMTP isn't designed to be real time. But there's absolutely no reason why e-mails shouldn't be real time in the modern world. Simply citing IM's as an argument misses the point. IM's are for conversations. Emails are for memos. There's no reason why memo's shouldn't be sent real time. In fact, Android's Gmail notifications are real time. Exchange pushes mail to Outlook clients in real time. There's no reason why real-time shouldn't be the standard for all e-mails. (note: we're not talking about real time character update. Just a standard system for pushing messages instead of the client periodically polling for updates).
stefantalpalaru 13y ago
woosh!
fulafel 13y ago
ASCII also increases "file size" by about 30% (using 8 bits per character where 6 would suffice). A better optimization than diligent bit-packing is a stateful compression system such as deflate. In addition to doing real compression, it will take care of any wasted bits in ASCII andd Base64 (latter being a MIME feature btw, not SMTP). I don't know if people usually run SMTP with TLS compression enabled - if not they probably aren't too worried about the wasted bits.
nollidge 13y ago
Sarcasm is clickbait now?
wtbob 13y ago
> But this is all moot as the article is about XMPP, WebDav and RSS. The SMTP headline is nothing more than clickbait. Not really. SMTP derives most of its utility from federation, and XMPP could have done the same. Of course, this is nothing new: NNTP was replaced by a million forums, XMPP federation never really took hold, and no doubt someday mail federation will die too. It's a crying shame, it really is.

ajross 13y ago

Arrgh. Title is total link bait. There is no news about SMTP here. The linked blog post is whining about XMPP, which is not being disabled. Apparently the author is a user of "XMPP Federation" (the ability to link XMPP servers together a-la IRC), which is also not being disabled. But apparently it might be someday, as the new Hangouts stuff won't support it. So how did we get form "can't talk to your Hangout via an XMPP client" to "Google will disable SMTP"? Really folks, this site used to be better about this stuff...

Dylan16807 13y ago
1. Looking at the other threads I can't quite get a straight answer on XMPP, but it seems to be entirely disabled for the "new communications product called Hangouts" (new??), but this is not just about federation. 2. claudius is very clearly explaining why google SHOULD disable SMTP. Nobody has seriously suggested they would; you might need to recalibrate your satire detector. Also claudius gave several reasons that apply equally to XMPP and SMTP to be extra helpful. :)
- andrewguenther 13y ago
  It is not available in Hangouts, but it will continue to be supported "for the foreseeable future" in GTalk.
  - tankenmate 13y ago
    Except that GTalk is now being deprecated on Android and being replaced with the new version of Hangouts...
  - fdr_cs 13y ago
    Just like reader, right ?
duaneb 13y ago
I don't think they would kill SMTP, but I also didn't think they would kill CalDav.