[ih] Did the MIL-STD matter? [IETF relevance (was Memories of Flag Day?)]

[Jack Haverty]

IIRC, SMTP defined a mechanism for sending bunches-of-bytes between two 
machines.   RFC822 defined a particular structure and syntax for those 
bytes.  By not mandating RFC822, DoD left open the possibility of 
developing other schemes for organizing that content.

For example, the 1981 "Military Message Experiment" had tried using 
"Arpanet mail" in an operational military context, and identified 
missing functionality -  "Precedence", "Authorization", and security 
issues are ones I remember.    Such functions were then in current use 
with the military "Autodin" messaging infrastructure, and the Experiment 
helped to identify what might be needed in an alternative to RFC822.  I 
don't know if anything further was actually developed as Autodin evolved 
into the DDN system.

Jack

On 9/5/23 10:31, Dave Crocker via Internet-history wrote:
> On 9/5/2023 10:19 AM, Miles Fidelman via Internet-history wrote:
>> The DoD Protocol Handbook - containing the TCP/IP, FTP, and SMTP 
>> standards
>
>
> This otherwise-superb, multi-volume document demonstrated an issue -- 
> though I prefer to call it a combination of errors -- that created a 
> professional life lesson for me.
>
> It cites SMTP, but not RFC 822.  They didn't realize that the RFC was 
> an independently-usable (and used) Internet protocol.
>
> The lesson for me was the power of acronyms.  Make sure a 
> specification comes with a short-form name or initials.  Oh, and that 
> people get into the habit of using it.
>
> d/
>