You're right about the open on the OUPUT filehandle. I think we're both right on the first thing (param vs. upload), though. :) As the CGI.pm docs say this:

    To be safe, use the upload() function (new in version
    2.47).  When called with the name of an upload field,
    upload() returns a filehandle, or undef if the parameter
    is not a valid filehandle.

            $fh = $query->upload('uploaded_file');
[download]

Calling param on an uploaded file field gives you a thing that's both a string and a filehandle. Using upload just makes sure you get a filehandle, as it's less of a security risk.

As to your question re: big uploads: do you get any out of memory errors? 60-70k doesn't seem like *that* big a value. Could it be a POST limitation?