The Advantages of Telnet, FTP and SMTP
Telnet, FTP and SMTP underlie almost all transactions on the Internet today. These three protocols were among the earliest network applications, and their development continues to provide services to Internet users. The Internet began in 1974 with the publication of the TCP/IP protocol. FTP was first defined in 1971 and Telnet in 1969. These two applications were running on early academic and military networks while the Internet was still under development. The development of SMTP began in 1980 and was published in 1982. FTP defines files transfers, Telnet is the original terminal emulator and SMTP is the foundation of email systems. Without these facilities, no one would want to use the Internet.
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In the Beginning
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Telnet, FTP and SMTP were early players in network communications. They operated over networks when few people understood what a network was. Few companies had networks, and they existed mainly in research institutions and university. The non-critical nature of the data transferred over early networks meant no one considered data security a priority. All three applications required users to enter a user name and password, and all three transmitted this information as unencrypted plain text. This made servers vulnerable to attack and as networks became more widely implemented, opportunities for thefts and fraud grew. This common failure threatened the survival of all three applications.
Telnet
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Telnet died in 1995. Its security weaknesses killed it off. Secure Shell came out in 1995, performing all the functions of Telnet but with encryption to protect its data while it traveled across the Internet. Secure Shell, also known as SSH, itself was found to have weaknesses, but it evolved through newer versions and it survived by eradicating its faults. Despite the death of Telnet, its memory lives on in "virtualization." Terminal emulators evolved into thin client systems where the local workstation was little more than a screen, a keyboard and a mouse. The local terminal in these systems in incapable of anything other than connecting to the network. All processing occurs on a central application server. "Cloud computing" is a Web-based extension to thin client systems.
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File Transfer Protocol
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Secure versions of FTP emerged and saved it from obsolescence. All file transfer utilities today are based on FTP. It exists as a Windows utility and also as a function library for exploitation by other programs. FTP is still one of the most successful protocols in existence.
SMTP
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The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, quite simply, is email. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection has email, and anyone with email uses SMTP. The SMTP protocol defines how emails leave an email client and travel across the Internet to the receiver's mail server. Two other protocols define how emails are received. Every email in the world travels according to SMTP, which makes it one of the most important technical standards in history.
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References
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