Message preparation Message receiving

Word processing Mailbox scanning

Annotation Message selection
Message notification
Message sending Message reply
User directory Message rerouting
Timed delivery
Multiple addressing
Message priority
Status information
Interface to other facilities
Defined in RFC 5598
At its most fundamental level consists of:
User world
In the form of message user agents (MUA)
Transfer world
In the form of the message handling service (MHS)
Which is composed of message transfer agents (MTA)
Administrative management domain (ADMD)
Internet e-mail provider
Examples include:
A department that operates a local mail relay (MTA)
An IT department that operates an enterprise mail relay
An ISP that operates a public shared e-mail service
Domain name system (DNS)
Directory lookup service that provides a mapping
between the name of a host on the Internet and its
numerical address
Post Office Protocol • User agent enters a username and password to
(POP) connect to the server to retrieve mail

Internet Mail Access • Provides stronger authentication and provides

Protocol (IMAP) other functions not supported by POP

Simple Mail Transfer • Used for transfer of mail from a user agent to a
Protocol (SMTP) MTA and from one MTA to another

Multipurpose • Supplements SMTP and allows the

Internet Mail encapsulation of multimedia messages inside
Extensions (MIME) of a standard SMTP message
Standard protocol for transferring mail between
hosts in the TCP/IP suite
Defined in RFC 821
Standardizes the message character set as 7-bit
ASCII
Adds log information to the start of the
delivered message that indicates the path the
message took
 Messages are Content standard
viewed as having includes a set of
an envelope and header fields that
contents may be used by the
• Envelope contains mail system to
Defines a format whatever information is
Used by SMTP as create the
for text messages needed to accomplish
accepted mail envelope, and the
that are sent using transmission and
format delivery standard is
e-mail
• Contents compose the intended to
object to be delivered facilitate the
to the recipient
acquisition of such
information by
programs
Consist of a sequence of lines of text and use a general
“memo” framework
A message consists of some number of header lines, which
follow a rigid format, followed by a body portion consisting
of arbitrary text
A header line usually consists of a keyword, followed
by a colon, followed by the keyword’s arguments
The most frequently used keywords are From, To,
Subject, and Date
Also commonly found in the header is a Message-ID
field which contains a unique identifier
associated with the message
 SMTP:
• Cannot transmit executable files or other binary objects
• Cannot transmit text data that include national language characteristics
• Servers may reject a mail message over a certain size
• Gateways that translate between ASCII and the character code EBCDIC
do not use a consistent set of mappings, resulting in translation
problems
• Gateways to X.400 e-mail networks cannot handle nontextual data
included in X.400 messages
• Some implementations do not adhere completely to the SMTP standards
defined in RFC 821
 Specifies five new message
header fields which may be
Intended to resolve included in an RFC 822
problems with SMTP and header
RFC 822
• These fields provide information
about the body of the message

Transfer encodings are

A number of content
defined that enable the
formats are defined, thus
conversion of any content
standardizing
format into a form that is
representations that support
protected from alteration by
multimedia e-mail
the mail system
MIME-Version
Must have the parameter value 1.0
Field indicates that the message conforms to the RFCs
Content-Type
Describes data in sufficient detail for receiver to pick
method for representation
Content-Transfer-Encoding
Indicates type of transformation used to represent content
Content-ID
Used to uniquely identify MIME entities
Content-Description
Plain text description of the object with the
body for use when object is not readable
Supports retrieval of mail between a client
system (MUA) and a server that holds the mail
for the client (MS)
• MUA establishes a TCP connection to the MS using port 110

POP3 (version 3 of POP) is an Internet standard

defined in RFC 1939
• Supports the basic functions of download and delete for
e-mail retrieval

States
• Authentication state
• Transaction state
• Update state
Defined by RFC 3501
Provides more functionality to users than the
POP model
Clients can have multiple remote mailboxes from
which messages can be retrieved
Clients can specify criteria for downloading
messages
Always keeps messages on the server and
replicates copies to the clients
Allows clients to make changes when
connected and when disconnected
Table can be found on page 292 in text
Transaction oriented client/server protocol
Most typical use is between a Web browser and
a Web server
Makes use of TCP to provide reliability
Is a stateless protocol
Each transaction is treated independently
Flexible in the formats that it can handle
 Web servers are relatively
The Web is vulnerable to
easy to configure and
attacks on the Web
manage but the
servers over the Internet
underlying software is
Reputations can be extraordinarily complex
damaged and money can and may hide potential
be lost if the Web servers security flaws
are subverted
Users are not necessarily
A Web server can be aware of the security risks
exploited as a launching that exist and do not have
pad into the corporation’s the tools or knowledge to
or agency’s entire take effective
computer complex countermeasures
Confidentiality
All data that pass between the two applications are
encrypted so that they cannot be eavesdropped on
the Internet
Message integrity
SSL assures that the message is not altered or
substituted for en route
Authentication
SSL can validate the identity of one
or both partners to the exchange
Combination of HTTP and SSL to implement secure
communication between a Web browser and a Web server

Principal difference seen by a user of a Web browser is

that URL addresses begin with https://

Provides encrypted communication of:

URL of the Contents of Contents of Contents of

requested the the browser Cookies the HTTP
document document forms Header
 Media Multimedia Streaming media

• Refers to the • Human- • The media

form of computer content is
information and interaction consumed as it
includes text, involving text, is delivered
still images, graphics, voice from the server
audio, and and video rather than
video • Also refers to waiting until an
storage devices entire file is
that are used to downloaded
store
multimedia
content
Text
Information that can be entered via a keyboard and
is directly readable and printable
Audio
Encompasses two different ranges of sound
Graphics
Supports the communication of individual pictures,
charts, or drawings
Video
Carries sequences of pictures in time
Widespread use of e-mail and the Internet by employees raises
a number of concerns for employers
Policy Issues:
Business use only
Policy scope
Content ownership
Privacy
Standard of conduct
Reasonable personal use
Unlawful activity prohibited
Security policy
Company policy
Company rights
Disciplinary action
  Multimedia
applications
 Electronic mail  Media types
 Internet mail  Multimedia
architecture applications
 SMTP  Multimedia
 MIME technologies
 POP and IMAP  Acceptable use
 Web access and HTTP policies
 Web security  Motivation
 Web traffic security  Policy issues
approaches
 Guidelines for
 SSL developing a policy
 HTTPS

Chapter 10: Internet-Based Applications