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Full-mode Fax Profile for Internet Mail (FFPIM)
draft-ietf-fax-ffpim-08

The information below is for an old version of the document that is already published as an RFC.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 4142.
Authors Graham Klyne , Dave Crocker
Last updated 2015-10-14 (Latest revision 2004-12-23)
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Intended RFC status Proposed Standard
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IESG IESG state Became RFC 4142 (Proposed Standard)
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Responsible AD Scott Hollenbeck
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draft-ietf-fax-ffpim-08
Fax                                                           D. Crocker
Internet-Draft                               Brandenburg InternetWorking
Expires: June 22, 2005                                          G. Klyne
                                                            Nine by Nine
                                                       December 22, 2004

            Full-mode Fax Profile for Internet Mail (FFPIM)
                        draft-ietf-fax-ffpim-08

Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all provisions
   of section 3 of RFC 3667.  By submitting this Internet-Draft, each
   author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of
   which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of
   which he or she become aware will be disclosed, in accordance with
   RFC 3668.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that
   other groups may also distribute working documents as
   Internet-Drafts.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.

   This Internet-Draft will expire on June 22, 2005.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).

Abstract

   Classic facsimile document exchange represents both a set of
   technical specifications and a class of service.Ã Previous work has
   replicated some of that service class as a profile within Internet
   mail.  The current specification defines "full mode" carriage of
   facsimile data over the Internet, building upon that previous work
   and adding the remaining functionality necessary for achieving

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   reliability and capability negotiation for Internet mail, on a par
   with classic T.30 facsimile.  These additional features are designed
   to provide the highest level of interoperability with the
   standards-compliant email infrastructure and mail user agents, while
   providing a level of service that approximates what is currently
   enjoyed by fax users.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Content Negotiation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.1 UA-based content negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.2 ESMTP-based content negotiation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.3 Interactions between UA and ESMTP negotiation mechanisms . . .  4
   3.  Content Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   4.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   5.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   5.1 Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   5.2 Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
       Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   A.  Direct Mode  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   B.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . .  9

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1.  Introduction

   This specification defines "full mode" carriage of facsimile data
   over the Internet, building upon previous work in A Simple Mode of
   Facsimile Using Internet Mail [RFC3965] and Extended Facsimile Using
   Internet Mail [RFC2532], and adding the remaining functionality
   necessary for achieving reliability and capability negotiation for
   Internet mail that is on a par with classic [T30] facsimile.  These
   additional features are designed to provide the highest level of
   interoperability with the standards-compliant email infrastructure
   and mail user agents, while providing a level of service that closely
   approximates the level of service currently enjoyed by fax users.

   Basic terminology is discussed in [RFC2542].Ã  Implementations which
   conform to this specification MUST also conform to [RFC3965] and
   [RFC2532].

   The new features are designed to be interoperable with the existing
   base of mail transfer agents (MTAs) and mail user agents (MUAs), and
   to take advantage of existing standards for optional functionality,
   such as positive delivery confirmation and disposition notification.
   Enhancements described in this document utilize the existing Internet
   email messaging infrastructure, where possible, instead of creating
   fax-specific features that are unlikely to be implemented in non-fax
   messaging software.

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

2.  Content Negotiation

   Classic facsimile service is interactive, so that a sending station
   can discover the capabilities of the receiving station, prior to
   sending a facsimile of a document.  This permits the sender to
   transmit the best quality of facsimile that is supported by both the
   sending station and the receiving station.  Internet mail is
   store-and-forward, with potentially long latency, so that
   before-the-fact negotiation is problematic.

   Use of a negotiation mechanism permits senders to transfer a richer
   document form than is permitted when using the safer-but-universal
   default form.  Without this mechanism, the sender of a document
   cannot be certain that the receiving station will be able to support
   the form.

   The capabilities that can be negotiated by an FFPIM participant are
   specified in [RFC2534] and [RFC2879].  Implementations that are

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   conformant to FFPIM MUST support content negotiation as described
   there.

2.1  UA-based content negotiation

   One method for exchanging the capabilities information uses a
   post-hoc technique that permits an originator to send the best
   version known by the originator to be supported by the recipient and
   then to send a version that is better suited to the recipient if the
   recipient requests it.  This mechanism is specified in [RFC3297].
   FFPIM implementations MUST support this mechanism.

2.2  ESMTP-based content negotiation

   Another method uses an ESMTP option specified in [ID-Conneg].  It
   requires support for content negotiation along the entire path that
   the email travels.  Using this mechanism, receiving ESMTP servers are
   able to report capabilities of the addresses (mailboxes) that they
   support [[and sending email clients are able to signal both
   permission and constraints on conversions.]]

   FFPIM participants MAY support this mechanism.

   NOTE: This specification provides for content conversion by
      unspecified intermediaries.  Use of this mechanism carries
      significant risk.  Although intermediaries always have the ability
      to perform damaging transformations, use of this specification
      could result in more exploitation of that potential and,
      therefore, more misbehavior.  Use of intermediaries is discussed
      in [RFC3238].

2.3  Interactions between UA and ESMTP negotiation mechanisms

   FFPIM participants must ensure that their use of the UA and ESMTP
   methods for content negotiation is compatible.  For example, the two
   mechanisms might consult two different repositories of capabilities
   information, and those repositories might contain different
   information.  Presumably this means that at least one of the
   repositories is inaccurate, so the larger problem is one of
   correctness, rather than synchronization.

   This specification does not require a particular method of using the
   mechanisms together.

3.  Content Format

   FFPIM allows the transfer of enhanced TIFF data relative to [RFC3965]

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   and [RFC2532].  The details for these enhancements are contained in
   [ID-TIFF-FX].  Implementations that are conformant to FFPIM SHOULD
   support TIFF enhancements.

   It should also be noted that the content negotiation mechanism
   permits a sender to know the full range of content types that are
   supported by the recipient.  Therefore, requirements for support of
   TIFF represent a functional minimum for FFPIM.

4.  Security Considerations

   As this document is an extension of [RFC3965] and [RFC2532], the
   Security Considerations sections of [RFC3965] and [RFC2532] apply to
   this document, including discussion of PGP and S/MIME use for
   authentication and privacy.

   It appears that the mechanisms added by this specification do not
   introduce new security considerations, however the concerns raised in
   [RFC2532] are particularly salient for these new mechanisms.

   Use of this specification should occur with particular attention to
   the following security concerns:

   * Negotiation can be used as a denial of service attack

   * Negotiating may lead to the use of an unsafe data format

   * Negotiation discloses information and therefore raises privacy
   concerns

   Use of the ESMTP CONNEG option permits content transformation by an
   intermediary, along the mail transfer path.  Ã When the contents are
   encrypted, the intermediary cannot perform the conversion, since it
   is not expected to have access to the relevant secret keying
   material.  Ã When the contents are signed, but not encrypted,
   conversion will invalidate the signature.  Therefore, permission to
   convert SHOULD NOT normally be used with signed or sealed messages.

5.  References

5.1  Normative References

   [ID-Conneg]
              Toyoda, K. and D. Crocker, "SMTP and MIME Extensions For
              Content Conversion", draft-ietf-fax-esmtp-conneg-09 (work
              in progress), December 2003.

   [ID-TIFF-FX]

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              Buckley, R., Venable, D., McIntyre, L., Parsons, G. and J.
              Rafferty, "File Format for Internet Fax",
              draft-ietf-fax-tiff-fx-14 (work in progress), February
              2004.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2532]  Masinter, L. and D. Wing, "Extended Facsimile Using
              Internet Mail", RFC 2532, March 1999.

   [RFC2534]  Masinter, L., Wing, D., Mutz, A. and K. Holtman, "Media
              Features for Display, Print, and Fax", RFC 2534, March
              1999.

   [RFC2542]  Masinter, L., "Terminology and Goals for Internet Fax",
              RFC 2542, March 1999.

   [RFC2879]  Klyne, G. and L. McIntyre, "Content Feature Schema for
              Internet Fax (V2)", RFC 2879, August 2000.

   [RFC3297]  Klyne, G., Iwazaki, R. and D. Crocker, "Content
              Negotiation for Messaging Services based on Email", RFC
              3297, July 2002.

   [RFC3965]  Toyoda, K., Ohno, H., Murai, J. and D. Wing, "A Simple
              Mode of Facsimile Using Internet Mail", RFC 3965, December
              2004.

5.2  Informative References

   [RFC3238]  Floyd, S. and L. Daigle, "IAB Architectural and Policy
              Considerations for Open Pluggable Edge Services", RFC
              3238, January 2002.

   [T30]      ITU-T (CCITT), "Procedures for Document Facsimile
              Transmission in the General Switched Telephone Network",
              Recommendation T.30, July 1996.

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Authors' Addresses

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   675 Spruce Drive
   Sunnyvale, CA  94086
   USA

   Phone: +1.408.246.8253
   EMail: dcrocker@brandenburg.com

   Graham Klyne
   Nine by Nine
   UK

   Phone:
   EMail: GK-IETF@ninebynine.org

Appendix A.  Direct Mode

   Email is a store-and-forward service, typically with highly variable
   delay between the time a message leaves the sender's realm and the
   time it arrives in the receiver's realm.  The number of relays
   between sender and receiver is also unknown and variable.  By
   contrast, facsimile is generally considered to be direct and
   immediate.

   An email profile that fully emulates facsimile must solve several
   different problems.  One is to ensure that the document
   representation semantics are faithful.  Another is that the
   interaction between sender and receiver is similar to that of
   telephony-based facsimile.  In particular it must ensure the
   timeliness of the interaction.  The specifications for FFPIM and its
   predecessors create the ability to have email emulate the former, the
   information (semantics) activities of facsimile.

   The ESMTP CONNEG option sets the stage for achieving the latter, with
   email-based facsimile transfer that has interactive negotiations, on
   a par with telephony-based facsimile.  The key, additional
   requirement is to achieve timeliness.  Ultimately, this requires
   configuring sender and receiving email servers to interact directly.
   That is, the sender's MTA must directly contact the receiver's MTA.
   With typical email service configurations, the content and
   interaction semantics of facsimile can be emulated quite well, but
   the timeliness cannot be assured.

   To achieve direct sending, the originating MTA must not use

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   sending-side intermediaries such as outbound enterprise MTAs.
   Instead, it must be configured to do transmissions directly to hosts
   specified in email addresses, based on queries to the public DNS.  To
   achieve direct receiving, the target MTAs must have DNS A records,
   without MX records.  That is, they also must be configured to use no
   intermediaries.

   The sender may then use ESMTP Conneg to determine the capabilities of
   the receiver.  Afterwards the sender will use the capabilities
   information to tailor the TIFF message content that it sends.

Appendix B.  Acknowledgements

   The IETF Fax working group has diligently participated in a
   multi-year effort to produce Internet-based emulation of classic
   facsimile via email profiles, as collaboration between the IETF and
   the ITU.  The effort benefited from the group's willingness to
   provide an initial, minimal mechanism, and then grow the
   specification to include more facsimile features, as implementation
   and operations experience was gained.

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Intellectual Property Statement

   The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
   Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
   pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
   this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
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Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).  This document is subject
   to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and
   except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.

Acknowledgment

   Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
   Internet Society.

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