One document matched: draft-ietf-fax-eifax-00.txt

Fax Working Group                                         Larry Masinter
Internet Draft                                         Xerox Corporation
March 13, 1998 08:53PST                                         Dan Wing
Expires August 1998                                        Cisco Systems
draft-ietf-fax-eifax-00.txt

  
                    Extended Facsimile Using Internet Mail

Status of this memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft. 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
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   This draft is being discussed by the IETF FAX working group.  To
   subscribe to the mailing list, send a message to
   ietf-fax-request@imc.org with the line "subscribe" in the body of
   the message.  Archives are available from
   http://www.imc.org/ietf-fax.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document describes extensions to "Simple Mode of Facsimile
   Using Internet Mail" [SERVICE] to accomplish additional features,
   including transmission enhanced faxes (higher resolution, color),
   confirmation of delivery, quick message delivery, GSTN billing
   information and message confidentiality.
   
1. Introduction

   This document notes a number of enhancements to the "Simple Mode of
   Facsimile Using Internet Mail" [SERVICE] that may be combined to
   create an extended mode of facsimile using Internet mail:
   
    * Delivery confirmation (Section 2)
    * Additional document features (Section 3)
    * Quick delivery and confirmation (Section 4)
    * GSTN billing information (Section 5)
    * Confidentiality (Section 6)
    * Cover sheet generation (Section 7)

   A device which supports all of these recommendations is called an
   EIFax (Extended Internet Fax) device.

   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.  Delivery Confirmation

   In Internet Mail, the operations of Delivery (to the mailbox) and
   Disposition (to paper or a screen) may be separated in time and
   location.  The confirmation of these two operations are supplied by
   Delivery Status Notifications [RFC1891, RFC1894] and Message
   Disposition Notifications [MDN] respectively.
   
   An EIFax sender MAY request either DSN or MDN, or both.

   An EIFax recipient that performs message delivery MUST provide DSN
   [RFC1891]; an EIFax recipient that performs message disposition
   MUST support the return of Message Disposition Notifications [MDN].

3. Additional document features

   [SERVICE] requires that a sender must not send documents with
   features beyond those supported by the S profile of [TIFF], unless
   the capabilities of the recipient are known. To extend [SERVICE] to
   allow sending of other document features, a mechanism by which the
   sender can determine additional recipient capabilities is
   necessary.
   
   Recipient capabilities to handle document features are described
   using media features as described in [FEATURES]; media features
   appropriate for facsimile are established in [MEDIA]. Other
   features (for private extensions by particular manufacturers, for
   example) MAY also be registered and used.

3.1 Message Disposition Notification Extension
   
   EIFax recipients SHOULD implement [MDN-FEATURES]; this returns to
   the sender the recipient's features as part of the message
   disposition notification.
   
   EIFax senders MAY retain a local cache of information about the
   features supported by recipients.  When an EIFax device sends a
   message to a specific recipient, it MAY use cached information to
   determine the recipient's capabilities to handle extended document
   features, such as the ability to handle additional TIFF profiles,
   media size and resolution, or document formats.

4. Quick Delivery and Confirmation

   [SESSION] describes a method by which delivery confirmation may be
   delivered quickly, if there is a simultaneous connection between
   sender and recipient. EIFax devices SHOULD implement
   [SESSION]. Intermediate MTAs, e.g., as part of firewalls, MAY also
   act as [SESSION] gateways, allowing for immediate delivery, with
   fallback to store-and-forward.
   
   EIFax devices MAY implement standard Internet mail routing using
   the domain name system [RFC974]. EIFax devices MAY be SMTP
   recipients registered as the primary mail exchanger for their
   domain.  This combination will allow the sending EIFax device to
   communicate directly with the recipient device.


5.  GSTN Billing Information

   [SERVICE] recommends that an offramp gateway servicing multiple
   mailboxes use SMTP as its protocol.

   To provide billing information for the offramp service back to the
   originator of a message, the offramp gateway SHOULD implement
   [DSN-EXTENSIONS].

6.  Confidentiality

   The user perception of GSTN-based fax is that it is secure, and faxes
   are used to send many confidential documents.  In order to provide
   the same level of confidentiality for fax over email, even better
   levels of security are necessary due to the nature of email and the
   threats of snooping.

6.1  Content

p   To secure the contents of the message itself, EIFax devices SHOULD
   implement S/MIME [SMIME] or PGP-MIME [PGPMIME] or both.

6.2  Envelope

   To secure the envelope itself, EIFax devices should implement [AUTH].

7. References

   [SERVICE] K.Toyoda, H. Ohno, J. Murai, D. Wing, "A Simple Mode of
   Facsimile Using Internet Mail", draft-ietf-fax-service-05.txt, Feb
   1998.
 
   [RFC2119] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
   Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, March 1997.
 
   [RFC1894] K. Moore, G. Vaudreuil, "An Extensible Message Format for
   Delivery Status Notifications", RFC 1894, January 1996
 
   [RFC1891] K. Moore, "SMTP Service Extensions for Delivery Status
   Notifications", RFC 1891, January 1996.
 
   [MDN] R. Fajman, "An Extensible Message Format for Message
   Disposition Notifications", draft-ietf-receipt-mdn-08.txt, Feb
   1998.

   [TIFF] L. McIntyre, S. Zilles, R. Buckley, D. Venable, G. Parsons,
   J.  Rafferty, "File Format for Internet Fax",
   draft-ietf-fax-tiffplus-08.txt, Feb 1998.
    
   [FEATURES] K. Holtman, A. Mutz, T. Hardie, "Feature Tag
   Registration Procedures", draft-ietf-conneg-feature-reg-00.txt,
   March 1998.
 
   [MEDIA] "Media Features for Display, Print, and Fax", L. Masinter,
   K. Holtman, A. Mutz, D. Wing.
   draft-ietf-conneg-media-features-00.txt, March 1998.
   
   [MDN-FEATURES] L. Masinter and D. Wing, "Using Message Disposition
   Notifications to Indicate Supported Features",
   draft-ietf-fax-mdn-features-01.txt, March 1998.

   [SESSION] N. Joffe, D. Wing, L. Masinter, "SMTP Service Extension
   for Immediate Delivery", draft-ietf-fax-smtp-session-02.txt, Feb
   1998.

   [DSN-EXTENSIONS] D. Wing. "Extensions to Delivery Status Notifications
   for Fax", November, 1997.
   
   [PGPMIME] J. Calls, L. Donnerhacke, H. Finney, R. Thayer. "OP
   Formats - OpenPGP Message Format",
   draft-ietf-openpgp-formats-01.txt, March 1998.

   [SMIME] B. Ramsdell. "S/MIME Version 3 Message Specification",
   draft-ietf-smime-msg-02.txt, March, 1998.

   [AUTH] J. Myers, "SMTP Service Extension for Authentication",
   draft-myers-smtp-auth-11.txt, February 1998.

   [GOALS] L. Masinter, "Terminology and Goals for Internet Fax",
   draft-ietf-fax-goals-02.txt, March 1998.
 
   [RFC974] C. Partridge. "Mail routing and the domain system",
   RFC 822, January 1986.
 
8. Authors' Addresses

   Larry Masinter
   Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
   3333 Coyote Hill Road
   Palo Alto, CA 94304  USA
   Fax:    +1 415 812 4333
   EMail:  masinter@parc.xerox.com
   
   Dan Wing
   Cisco Systems, Inc.
   101 Cooper Street
   Santa Cruz, CA 95060  USA
   Phone: +1 408 457 5200
   Fax:   +1 408 457 5208
   EMail: dwing@cisco.com
   
Copyright

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society 1998.  All Rights Reserved.
 
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