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Direct Internet Message Encapsulation
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<h2 id="criticisms">Criticisms</h2> <p>Issues with HTTP </p><p>DIME was defined as the transmission format at the <a href="/facts/Data_link_layer/K9yPufbt">data link layer</a> in the <a href="/facts/OSI_model/oxN9Xhjz">OSI model</a> although it was typically transmitted over <a href="/facts/HTTP/TWtvf7JD">HTTP</a>. One difficulty here was that it could form an HTTP message of essentially any size (the limit being the size information for each chunk, which was 32 bits so 1 gigabit). Many HTTP receivers were not used to messages as large as this, and if they buffered messages would simply fail, due to the fact that the software expected a short message, but instead received a long one. Moreover, if the HTTP receiver was secured, it would, send back a challenge message (400 code) to the sender upon receiving the message. Because HTTP is connectionless, it would then entirely lose the possibly huge amount of data that had been sent to it, just to accept or deny the challenge. The response to the challenge could of course succeed, at the expense of sending the data twice, which if it were huge rather defeats its point. </p><p>In the alternate solution, the criteria for a successful challenge (e.g. a username and password) is established out-of-band, so it can be sent with the message the first time and not receive a challenge (the by-product of the connectionless HTTP protocol being that since each message is treated individual, <i>any</i> message must be able successfully to include its challenge response). </p><p>DIME was extremely fast compared to practical applications of other protocols. Because the data was binary rather than, say, <a href="/facts/Base64/xIvVm33q">Base64</a> encoded, it was relatively compact, and the chunking and packet methods built into the protocol meant it could be streamed and read by a suitable receiver before the whole message had been read. </p><p>Issues at the Network Layer </p><p>Because DIME was defined at the data link layer, it was possible to <a href="/facts/Information_hiding/dnSDPMaz">encapsulate</a> a DIME message in another DIME message. This would not help at all for compression purposes but was occasionally useful to bypass networking infrastructure such as <a href="/facts/Router_(computing)/Nh5cIyVf">routers</a> at the network layer of the OS model, which would otherwise block the encapsulated traffic (being binary they may treat it with suspicion). That being said, other protocols such as MIME may equally suffer such. Since DIME was generally used between well-trusted clients, a specific port could be opened at the router for the express purpose of sending and receiving DIME traffic. This did not subvert the security aspects, since the challenge would still occur, merely that it accepted that binary traffic was the norm on that port, and did not give numerous <a href="/facts/False_positive/jkC44hML">false positives</a>. </p> <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul><li><a href="/facts/SOAP_with_Attachments/BgH4Bq5f">SOAP with Attachments</a></li></ul> <h2 id="external-links">External links</h2> <ul><li><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480488.aspx">Overview</a> by <a href="/facts/Microsoft/nGIDDXdx">Microsoft</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://xml.coverpages.org/dime.html">Links to articles about DIME</a></li> <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110322215429/http://bgp.potaroo.net/ietf/all-ids/draft-nielsen-dime-02.txt">Latest IETF draft</a></li> <li><a href="http://discuss.develop.com/dime.html">Archives of the DIME Discussion list</a> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20061205024922/http://discuss.develop.com/dime.html">Archived</a> 2006-12-05 at the <a href="/facts/Wayback_Machine/nmQ3a6JC">Wayback Machine</a></li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Nielsen, Henrik; Sanders, Henry; Christensen, Eric D.; Huitema, Christian (July 2002). "draft-nielsen-dime-00 Direct Internet Message Encapsulation (DIME)". Retrieved 2021-02-11. <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nielsen-dime-00" target="_blank">https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nielsen-dime-00</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Nielsen, Henrik; Sanders, Henry; Christensen, Eric D.; Huitema, Christian (July 2002). "draft-nielsen-dime-02 Direct Internet Message Encapsulation (DIME)". Retrieved 2021-02-11. <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nielsen-dime-02" target="_blank">https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nielsen-dime-02</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Salz, Rich (2003-12-12). "Re: Where can I find out about the current status of DIME". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2006-10-31. <a href="/wiki/Rich_Salz" target="_blank">/wiki/Rich_Salz</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>"Messaging Specifications Index Page". Microsoft. Archived from the original on 2011-06-06. Retrieved 2006-10-31. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110606142343/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms951268.aspx" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20110606142343/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms951268.aspx</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>"Technical documentation". <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnservice/html/service01152002.asp" target="_blank">http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnservice/html/service01152002.asp</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>