Re: is SMTP a candidate for OPES ?

On Tue, 6 Jul 2004, jfcm wrote:

[legal- and quantum physics-related stuff snipped]

> But the point again is : you do not know what a mail is until you
> have completely stored it. Let say the signature is at the end. Only
> then you fully know what you want to do with the header.

The above "you do not know" assertion is false for some kinds of
e-mail transformations (e.g., detecting a known spam by looking at
Subject lines or headers) and true for some kinds of HTTP
transformations (e.g., detecting a virus by examining sensitive octets
at the end of an HTTP entity).

Overall, there is nothing special about SMTP here, IMO: some OPES
adaptations require the whole message, some do not. Sometimes OPES
processing overheads delay the entire message; sometimes they delay a
portion of the message.

Why is SMTP special at this level of thinking?

Alex.