If the subtype of a MIME application is “octet-stream” it indicates that the body comprises arbitrary binary data.
The current defined parameter set is:
1. TYPE - General or a category of binary data. The information sent is meant for a human recipient and not for any form of automatic processing.
2. PADDING - This parameter defines the bits of padding that are appended to the bit-stream that contains the actual content to produce an enclosed byte-oriented data of 8 bits. This parameter is useful when there is a need to enclose a bit stream in a body in cases where the total number of bits is not a multiple of 8.
Note: Both these parameters are optional.
RFC 1341 defined an additional parameter, CONVERSIONS for this MIME type. However, it was removed later. The RFC also stated using the NAME parameter to provide a suggested file name, in case there was any need to write some data to the file. However, this was not accepted very well because there was an expectation for a separate Content-Disposition header field; that was to be defined in a subsequent RFC.
If an implementation receives an "application/octet-stream" entity then the recommended action is to offer to put data in a file after undoing Content-Transfer-Encoding, or may be using it as input to a process specified by a user.
When transferring any type of data, it is essential to take actions to reduce the danger of transmitting malicious as well as rogue programs. Therefore, it is recommended not to implement a path-search mechanism in which the message body is used as input to find and execute an arbitrary program that is named in the Content-Type parameter.
MIME Application/Octet-Stream Type - Associated File Extensions
File Extension *
File Extension bin
File Extension class
File Extension dms
File Extension exe
File Extension lha
File Extension lzh
How to Open Octet-Stream MIME Application Files?
Usually, the creator of the program is asked to resend a file with the type MIME application/octet-stream or at least inform about the program that created it. This is because the "application/octet-stream" MIME type on its own does not provide any clear indication about the application or CLSID that is associated with it as a content handler. It is due to this reason that many refer this MIME type as ambiguous.
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