Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 12:03:47 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Andrew Reilly <reilly@zeta.org.au>, FreeBSD Chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Digitally Signed Messages (Re: HEADS UP: CAM cutover in two wee ks.) Message-ID: <19980417120347.K1090@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <199804162315.JAA06772@gurney.reilly.home>; from Andrew Reilly on Fri, Apr 17, 1998 at 09:15:31AM %2B1000 References: <19980416162753.I1090@freebie.lemis.com> <199804162315.JAA06772@gurney.reilly.home>
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--UugvWAfsgieZRqgk Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii (moved to -chat) On Fri, 17 April 1998 at 9:15:31 +1000, Andrew Reilly wrote: > On 16 Apr, Greg Lehey wrote: >> On Thu, 16 April 1998 at 10:05:20 +1000, Andrew Reilly wrote: >>> On 15 Apr, Scot W. Hetzel wrote: >>>> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4 >>>> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 >> >> Just because it's Outlook? > > No. I've never used Outlook, but I've been biassed against Microsoft's > e-mail products by the obnoxious things all of the previous versions > have done to me over the years. That was more or less what I was suggesting :-) > My original comment was intended to suggest that a mailer that did not > handle digital signatures in a way that is convenient for the recipient > must be broken by design. Note that convenient handling can > legitimately include ignoring it altogether, or tagging it as an > unrecognised MIME attachment. Well, I've found more badly formatted messages from Outlook than all the others put together, and I'm beginning to wonder if it's possible to use it correctly. But it *is* configurable. I often send out message in the first attachment to people who send out one-line-per-paragraph messages (which seems to be Outlook's default). Many reply to me with correctly formatted messages either thanking me for drawing it to their attention, abusing me in no uncertain terms, or saying "what are you talking about", as if they hadn't changed anything. I suspect that there are ways to configure Outlook to do what you propose with digital signatures. The real problem is probably to explain to people what they should be using. I've written http://www.lemis.com/email.html for that purpose. Comments welcome. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key --UugvWAfsgieZRqgk Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=No-line-breaks I'm sorry, I can't read this message. It contains no line breaks in paragraphs, it is a pain to read, and it's completely avoidable. I no longer reply to the contents of such messages. Since I haven't examined the message more closely, this also means that I may send you more than one copy of this message, and that I don't know whether I could answer your question or not. I'm not writing to bitch about this: there are a couple of serious reasons. First, writing this kind of message significantly reduces your chances of getting a useful reply, and secondly there's a good chance that you're not aware this is happening. If this is the case, there is a possibility that it is due to your mailer, either because it is broken by design, or because it is incorrectly configured. I have noted that the following mailers seem to have problems in this area: "Microsoft Mail" Microsoft Outlook Mozilla (Netscape) Yahoo! mail exmh Why do so many "reputable" mailers have these problems? Bugs are one reason, of course, but there's more to it than that. Microsoft-based mailers think they're doing you a favour by either leaving it to the receiver to decide how to display the message (this results in one-line paragraphs), or ensuring that no line is longer than a certain length. If this 'certain length' is slightly shorter than what you enter, it creates a long and a short line out of each line. So what's wrong with these approaches? 1. The mail standards are explicit: the mail type "text/plain" should display exactly as written. This is a feature, not a bug. Microsoft, in particular, often ignores this requirement. Consider what this can do to a message which is split into two columns. 2. Normally, when you reply to a mail message, you 'quote' it by putting a '> ' sequence at the beginning of each line. For example: --- example --- Fred Bloggs said: > OK, Joe, how about gettting together on Saturday and finding > out what's wrong with this machine. I can bring along a > logic analyzer and a second machine for debugging. Thanks, Fred, let's do it. How does 2:30 pm sound? --- end example --- If your mailer wraps this message, you could get things like: > OK, Joe, how about gettting together on Saturday and finding > out what's wrong with this machine. I can bring along a > logic analyzer and a second machine for debugging. alternatively, they could be: > OK, Joe, how about gettting together on Saturday and finding out > what's wrong with this machine. I can bring along a logic > analyzer and a second machine for debugging. I hope you'll agree that both of these look much worse. Of course, it could be that my examples don't show up well on your system. I don't know how to help you in that case. For further information, take a look at http://www.lemis.com/email.html If you do succeed in fixing the configuration, please let me know. It seems to be difficult, and so far I don't have much information to offer in the web page. Greg --UugvWAfsgieZRqgk-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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