ish is a format to encode binary files to text file, or decode text files into binary file. ish has strong error correction/detection functionality using CRC and checksum. This format is popular in Japanese BBS'es. To non-Japanese people: To produce non-Japanese text a user should use "-s7" option. Other options such as "-ss" may produce Japanese text. To Japanese people: To use ish over NetNews newsgroups (such as fj.*), use "-s7" option. Use of "-ss" will not give you the optimal performance. "-ss" option is just for BBSes that use Shift-JIS as their native Japanese encoding.