Editing YEnc (section)

{{lowercase|title=yEnc}}
{{short description|File transfer encoding scheme}}

'''yEnc''' is a [[binary-to-text encoding]] scheme for transferring binary files in messages on [[Usenet]] or via [[e-mail]]. It reduces the [[computational overhead|overhead]] over previous [[ASCII|US-ASCII]]-based encoding methods by using an [[8-bit]] encoding method. yEnc's overhead is often (if each byte value appears approximately with the same frequency on average) as little as 1–2%,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.yenc.org/yenc-draft.1.3.txt |first=Juergen |last=Helbing |access-date=2014-07-26 |date=2002-02-28 |title=yEncode - A quick and dirty encoding for binaries}}</ref> compared to 33–40% overhead for 6-bit encoding methods like [[uuencode]] and [[Base64]]. yEnc was initially developed by Jürgen Helbing, and its first release was early 2001. By 2003 yEnc became the de facto standard encoding system for binary files on Usenet.<ref name="Fellows2006">{{cite journal |last1=Fellows |first1=G. |title=Newsgroups reborn – The binary posting renaissance |journal=Digital Investigation |volume=3 |issue=2 |year=2006 |pages=73–78 |issn=1742-2876 |doi=10.1016/j.diin.2006.04.006}}</ref> The name yEncode is a wordplay on ''"Why encode?"'', since the idea is to only encode characters if it is absolutely required to adhere to the message format standard.<ref name="KimSchneider2010">{{cite book |last1=Kim |first1=Juhoon |title=2010 INFOCOM IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops |last2=Schneider |first2=Fabian |last3=Ager |first3=Bernhard |last4=Feldmann |first4=Anja |chapter=Today's Usenet Usage: NNTP Traffic Characterization |year=2010 |pages=1–6 |doi=10.1109/INFCOMW.2010.5466665 |isbn=978-1-4244-6739-6 |citeseerx=10.1.1.679.6023|s2cid=18282467 }}</ref>