Re: [OT] message formats (was: browser footprint)

[Scott Bennett <bennett@xxxxxxxxxx>]

     On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:32:36 +0000 scar <scar@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Scott Bennett @ 2008/07/22 23:21:
>>      On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:02:10 +0200 Ansgar Wiechers <tor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>> On 2008-07-21 Scott Bennett wrote:
>>>>      On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:24:22 +0200 "=?UTF-8?Q?Tom=C3=A1s_Arribas?="
>>>> <Tomas@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>> PiBUb3IgaXNuJ3QgdGhlIHJpZ2h0IHBsYWNlIHRvIGJlIG1hbmdsaW5nIGFwcGxpY2F0aW9uIHBy
>>>>> b3RvY29scyBpZiBpdAo+IGNhbiBiZSBhdm9pZGVkLiAgVGhhdCdzIGZvciBwcm90b2NvbC1zcGVj
>>>>>  [remainder of junk deleted  --SB]
>>>>      Is there some good reason for posting crap like the above to this list?
>>>> It's bad enough that some insist upon posting their message along with an
>>>> HTML duplicate, but at least there is usually some original text content.
>>> As per RFC 2045 base64 is a valid transfer encoding for a message body.
>>> It was declared correctly in the header, too. What kind of MUA do you
>>> use that won't decode this for you?
>> 
>>      I'm using mailx(1), which is the SysV equivalent of UCBmail, the staple
>> of UNIX systems for decades.  It is safe, reliable, and either mailx or
>> UCBmail is found on just about every kind of UNIX still in use today.  It
>> handles mail headers and plain, ASCII text.  If you want to use other
>> character sets in private email, that's fine, but it's not appropriate to do
>> so on mailing lists.
>
>this is silly, but....
>
>mailx needs a patch, then.  it may have been created during a time when
>ASCII was all that was needed.  but, times change.  lot's of other

     Then you should send your suggestion to Sun Microsystems, Inc., not
to me, because this particular implementation is the Solaris version.  You
may also want to suggest something similar to the FreeBSD development team
for UCBmail (likewise the NetBSD and OpenBSD teams) because that is included
in the base system just as mailx is with Solaris, and probably also to
the LINUX developers, though I don't use LINUX and do not know for sure
that they maintain a version of mailx.  It is indeed a UNIX standard, so
live with it.

>people out there use non-ASCII characters, and UTF-8 is starting to
>become a standard character set.  like was mentioned, the e-mail
>conformed to RFC standards.  if your client can't handle these standards
>then you are complaining to the wrong people (read: write to the authors
>of mailx! ;-) ).
>
     Tough.  All the extra fluff that has been added to email over the years
is yet another source of security headaches.  I choose to stick with an
interface that is tried and true, can be found on any UNIX system I use or
will likely ever use in the future, and presents no security risks at all.
     This list is about tor.  People posting to it should use a universally
accepted format, in this case, plain, ASCII text if they want to be
understood.  No MIME, just ASCII.  The places for other such things are
lists chartered specifically in another language, USENET news groups, web
pages for HTML and/or images, private email, and probably some others I've
overlooked.
     One of the nice things about the OR-TALK mailing list is that it is
generally a low-volume list, not a 50+ messages per day list (which I would
subscribe to in digest format or else look for a gatewayed version in USENET
anyway), so there is really no need for subject threading anyway.  It's a
good list.  Let's keep it that way.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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