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C00002 00002	%networ[f88,jmc]		Networks considered harmful --- for electronic mail
C00008 00003	\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ \number\year\ by John McCarthy}
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%networ[f88,jmc]		Networks considered harmful --- for electronic mail
\input memo[let,jmc]
\input jmclet[let,jmc]
\memoto David Cheriton
\from John McCarthy
\subject NETWORKS CONSIDERED HARMFUL --- FOR ELECTRONIC MAIL
\body
	This version is a draft circulated for comments.  In particular,
I'm not sure of the accuracy of the part about UUCP.  I plan to
submit it to CACM.

	Electronic mail, using the ARPAnet and other networks has
been in use for almost 20 years.  The widespread use of telefax is
more recent.  However, unless electronic mail is freed from dependence
on the networks, I predict it will be wiped out by telefax for most
uses in spite of the many advantages of electronic mail.  These
include the fact that information is transmitted more cheaply
as character streams than as images.  Moreover, character streams
can be filed and edited.

	The reason is that telefax works by using the existing
telephone network directly.  To become a telefax user, it is only
necessary to buy a telefax machine for a price between \$1,000 and
\$5,000 depending on features and to publicize one's fax number
on stationery and on business cards.  Once this is done anyone in
the world can communicate with you.  No politics, no complicated
network addresses.

	Electronic mail could work the same way, but because of a
mistake by DARPA about 1970, it was combined with other network
uses that require higher bandwith.

	Another mistake was UUCP.  It uses the telephone network, but
there are two blunders in its design.

	1. It assumes that both parties are using the UNIX operating
system rather than using a general mail protocol.  This isn't very
serious, because other systems could always pretend to be UNIX
sufficiently well to implement the protocols.

	2. It requires that the sender of a message have login privileges
on the receiver.  This has resulted in a system of relaying messages
that involves gateways and complicated addresses.  This results in
politics in getting connected to the gateways and causes addresses
often to fail.

	There has been a proliferation of networks and message services
on a variety of time-sharing utilities.  The connections between these
networks require politics and often fail.

	The solution is to go to a system in that resembles fax in that
the ``net addresses'' are just telephone numbers.  The simple form
of the command is just

\noindent MAIL $\langle$user$\rangle$@$\langle$telephone number$\rangle$.

	The sending machine dials the receiving machine just as is
done with fax.  When the receiving machine answers, the sender
announces that it has a message for $\langle$user$\rangle$.  Implementing
this can involve either implementation of protocols in a user machine or a
special machine that pretends to be a user of the receiving machine or
local area network.  The former involves less hardware, but the latter
involves less modification to the operating system of the receiving
machine.

	Of course, one way of accomplishing this is for the makers
of fax machines to offer ASCII service as well.  This will avoid
many users being forced to print out their messages in a convenient
OCR font and transmit them by fax, whereupon the receiver will
scan them with an OCR scanner in order to get them back into
computer form.
\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ \number\year\ by John McCarthy}
\smallskip\noindent{This draft of NETWOR[F88,JMC] TEXed on \jmcdate\ at \theTime}

\endletter\end