- BlitzMail
BlitzMail is an
e-mail system used atDartmouth College . Despite misconceptions on the part of some Dartmouth students, to email someone is not called to "blitz"..people in the normal world call it "e-mail". It was one of the earliest e-mail server/client packages. It became massively popular at the College owing to its simplicity and power that appealed to even the most non-technical of users.History
BlitzMail was developed by Dartmouth in 1987 and went live in the summer of
1988 . Today's BlitzMail is descended from this codebase.The name "BlitzMail" started as a joke among its programmers, as it had to be developed quickly.
In 1991, when Dartmouth required every student to own a computer, the server code was updated to allow multiple servers to accommodate the heavy demand for the system. In 1993, the server was rewritten to support mail folders, a necessity. In 1994, the client and server software was released for use outside of Dartmouth. Some non-Dartmouth BlitzMail deployments include Valley.Net, an
internet service provider in New England's Upper Valley region and, from 1991 to 2005,Reed College in Portland, OR.The first versions of the client ran only on the
Apple Macintosh operating system. The client was ported to Windows around the time of Windows 3.1.Dartmouth's Computing Services plans to roll out an updated BlitzMail client for Mac OS X that will feature encrypted client-server communications. (Currently, only Windows users have the ability to use encrypted sessions.) Developed in May 2006 by computer science doctoral candidate Chris Masone (D ‘02), the software should be available in late 2007. [ [http://thedartmouth.com/2007/09/28/news/blitz/ TheDartmouth.com | College to release new Blitz for Macs ] ]
Developers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Memorial Hospital have continued to maintain the Windows client, and an SSL-enabled client is rumored to be forthcoming. Recent releases of the client have experimental support for rendering (but not composing)
HTML -based messages.BlitzMail On Campus
A 'BlitzMail culture' exists on the Dartmouth College campus. The system has all but replaced on-campus landline
telephone use for local communication, and provides direct and immediate contact between students, professors and administrators. Official announcements are sent via the system, as well as more-informal ones from organizations about upcoming events, parties, and the like. BlitzMail plays a large role in the Dartmouth social scene.Approximately 100 public terminals are located around campus (in libraries, dining halls, and academic buildings) for BlitzMail use. (In the mid-1990s, Mac Classic public terminals were commonly referred to as "Blitzcheckers.") In 2001, a
pinkeye epidemic erupted on campus, spread in large part by the use of keyboards at these public terminals.The campus is also blanketed in a wireless network, and most students have laptops. The result is that BlitzMail is accessible nearly anywhere.
The word "blitz" has become a noun (an e-mail) and a verb (to e-mail — "I'll blitz you!") in campus
slang (but NOT off-campus, where to say 'blitz' is just weird and lame). Most students check blitz on (at least) an hourly basis. Another unique phenomenon is the "blitz war"--which occurs when a message is sent to a large group of recipients, without using the optional feature to hide the recipients' names, for the purpose of annoying others. Hundreds of responses to the list can be generated in an hour in a heated war.Until recently (mid-2000s), due to poor cellular reception on campus, many students opted to use BlitzMail rather than cellular phones. [http://thedartmouth.com/2006/02/24/news/blitzmail/] However, as service has steadily improved on campus, many students have increased their use of cell phones for both text messaging and voice calls, and BlitzMail's role in social communications has decreased. In 2006, combining the two technologies, students developed a system for checking blitz on a cell phone. [http://thedartmouth.com/2006/02/06/news/flurrymail/]
The BlitzMail Client
The BlitzMail client is graphical, and runs on Windows and Macintosh computers. Several Java implementations exist, as well as web-based clients, such as NetBlitz and WebBlitz. The client has not had major updates since the late 1990s, with the exception of a port to
Mac OS X . The client does not officially supportHTML -based e-mail, dealing only in plaintext. (HTML files are viewed as attachments.)One of the program's strengths is its portability for users. A user's mailbox, address book, and preferences are all stored on the server. Any user can log into any installation of the client and have full access to their data. After a user logs out, no data or personalization is stored on the local machine. This feature allows the use of the many public terminals.
BlitzMail also acts as a pseudo-
instant messaging client. Messages are processed by the server and delivered to the recipient almost immediately.The program also has great strength in its integration with the
Dartmouth Name Directory , or DND. With this, users simply type the name of the recipient in the To: field (for example, "Throckmorton P. Scribblemonger", and the DND determines the full e-mail address of the intended recipient (throckmorton.p.scribblemonger@dartmouth.edu, in this example.) The DND also allows users to create any number of aliases for their blitz address (for example, 'throckie', or 'tps') that require less typing. However, Theresa P. Schultz, should she enter 'tps' as her alias, would prevent Throckie (and herself) from receiving such mail. Only the fully-qualified name guarantees delivery. (theresa.p.schultz@dartmouth.edu or throckmorton.p.scribblemonger@dartmouth.edu)Technical Specifications
BlitzMail speaks its own protocol between client and server. Thus, the BlitzMail client is the only one that can utilize the full feature-set of the server.
Messages entering and leaving the BlitzMail domain are handled via SMTP. As of 2004, patches were available that allowed clients to connect to a BlitzMail server via POP3 and IMAP (with SSL.) The client communicates to the server on TCP ports 2151 and 1119 and the notification service runs on UDP port 2154.
In 2002,
SpamAssassin functionality was added to BlitzMail. The DND server was also modified to allow LDAP lookups.The BlitzMail and DND servers run on DEC
Unix and manyLinux flavors. The OS must supportPOSIX threading orMach kernel -style cthreads. The server will run on systems with very low hardware requirements.The BlitzMail servers have run on a variety of hardware at Dartmouth. In the early 1990s, the mail and DND servers ran on 25 MHz
NeXT cubes named after Santa Claus' reindeer. At the time, BlitzMail's performance was nearly unparalleled; hundreds of sessions could be handled on each machine. Later, the servers were migrated to DEC 3000 AXP Model 300s.Python Port
A Python library implementation called PyBlitz was released in 2006 by Michael Fromberger. While not a client in and of itself, the package provides bindings that may be used to write one.
Redistribution
The BlitzMail client and server software are available under an BSD-style (with ad clause) license.
Developers
BlitzMail's developers include Rich Brown, David Gelhar, Jim Matthews, Pete Schmitt, Steve Campbell, Steve Ligett, Paul Merchant, Kevin Schofield, Jim Van Verth, and David Greenfield.
The Blitzmail Bulletins feature was designed by Nancy Hossfeld and Randy Spydell.
The Windows version of the BlitzMail client was developed by Doug Hornig.
References
External links
* [http://www.dartmouth.edu/softdev/blitz.html Blitzmail Features And History]
* [http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~sting/sw/ PyBlitz -- Python Bindings for Blitzmail]
* [http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ers0202/cs/ecs0209.pdf Wireless Networking at Dartmouth College]
* [http://listmail.temple.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0308b&L=mmc&F=&S=&P=3141 August 14, 2003 "New York Times" article about Blitzmail]
* [http://basement.dartmouth.edu/blitz WebBlitz - A Web-Based BlitzMail client]
* [http://netblitz2.dartmouth.edu NetBlitz - A Web-Based BlitzMail client]
*cite paper | author=Campbell, Stephen | title=Email for Everyone: Making It Work in Real Life | date=1994 | url=ftp://ftp.dartmouth.edu/dartmouth/Email_for_Everyone/
* [http://basement.dartmouth.edu/protocols/DND-protocol.pdf The DND Protocol]
* [http://basement.dartmouth.edu/protocols/BlitzMail-protocol.pdf The BlitzMail Protocol]
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