alt Hacker Newsbecause in those days there was no curl, or wget. and then when there was, there was no guarantee they'd be installed.
telnet was always there though. it also worked for speaking all the other plaintext internet protocols. (imap, pop, smtp, etc)
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dragontamer • today at 7:01 PM
Note: Telnet is not completely plaintext and has control characters in the upper byte range (like 0xff or something, I forget).
Use nc or this TCP Bash technique if you really want to ensure decent compatibility when doing hacky solutions, otherwise a random 0xFF somewhere from a terminal console color change (or other control character) might really screw you over.
EDIT or ya know, use the correct tool like Curl.
I used telnet to send mail via SMTP once, it's quite literally a good social protocol because it begins with a polite 'HELO'.