Jargons of Info Tech industry

[Rich Teer]

But trying to keep your email world into a pure text-based
no-formatting-whatsoever world, that's a fantasy bubble that is bound to
burst, sooner rather than later.

Not here. I've configured my email server to reject HTML emails
before I even see them, and more often tham not I'll delete any
others that sneak through the gate.

If people want me to read their email, they should send it to me
in an open, universal format, which for email is plain text. It's
as simple as that.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich

 

[Mike Meyer]

Try Opera. You can merge the two.

Merge the two CSS files? Most browsers do that - that's why they call
them "cascading" style sheets. Got a sample style sheet that you use
that prevernts authors from overriding things?

For the font size problem, Camino has a simple solution: a "minimum
size" for fonts. That's why it's my default OS X browser (well, that
and that Terminal sucks as a scripting tool). I'm not sure you can do
that with CSS.

<mike

 

[John Bokma]

WHat the hell has that got to do with HTML email?

The photo doesn't have to be included (as in attached)? with the email?

Sending photos
is an example of what attachments are for.

Yeah, yeah, and 640K is enough for everybody. Same song, different tune.

 

[John Bokma]

Not here. I've configured my email server to reject HTML emails
before I even see them, and more often tham not I'll delete any
others that sneak through the gate.

Good for you. If I do that, I lose some customers. Your private war is a
joke, and one day you'll wake up. What a waste of energy.

If people want me to read their email, they should send it to me
in an open, universal format, which for email is plain text. It's
as simple as that.

Is Unicode allowed, or is 7 bit ASCII the only right way?

 

[Mike Meyer]

This is one of the marvels of CSS once you get the hang of it. If you
don't like bright red letters on green backgrounds, you can CHANGE
that. You can change the fonts, sizes etc etc. You can if you want get
something very like plain ASCII text.

Show us *examples*! Do you create a style sheet for every site you
visit that overrides there classes? What?

So from an aesthetic point of view, once people learn how it works,
CSS lets sender and receiver compromise on what the message looks
like. No other medium gives ANY control to the receiver about how a
message is formatted.

Sorry, but that's bullshit. The receiver controls the viewer software,
and hence ultimately has complete control over *everything*. If I use
ghostscript as the viewer for ps and pdf files, I can install font map
files to replace all the standardd sans serif fonts with serifed
fonts, and so on. Some viewer applications may require editing the
magic .c, .cpp, etc. configuration files, but that's possible so long
as you're sending something other than pictures of words.

There is also the philosophical question. When my nephew sends me a
message, do I have a right to warp his intent even if I don't like the
aesthetics? That is part of his message.

If HTML is a medium, only someone really ignorant of the medium will
think that their presentation is preserved. As has been pointed out,
moving the file from Windows to other platforms changes the font
sizes. The physical monitor size, the screen size, the readers window
size, the dpi on the monitor, even the color depth on low-end devices
all change the presentation. The fonts you use may not be installed on
the recipients platform - I particularly like the idea that if you use
a font installed by some application, the only person who'll see it
the way you intended is the guy who bought the other copy of that
application.

So what you're really asking is if you have the right to read his
message on anything but his favorite rendering agent configured the
way he likees it, on his favorite computer configured the way he likes
it.

Should my email reader fix the spelling mistakes in the emails sent me
by angry US soldiers? Or is that part of the message?

I say let Harlan Ellison decide.

There are three different issues getting muddled together:

1. avoiding spam

I think what you mean here is "avoiding malware". Spam should be dealt
with before it gets to your mail reader.

2. making mail from well meaning but inept friends more readable.

3. what constitutes a good general style for general correspondence.
How should you use rich text appropriately.

Well, if you want your presentation preserved, you don't send rich
text, you send pictures of words.

<mike

 

[Paul Boddie]

Just how long do you want to stall evolution? Do you imagine people
200 years from now will be still be using pure ASCII text unable to
find a solution to JavaScript viruses (turn off JS), pop-up( disable
popups) etc.?

People in their sky-cars turning off JavaScript in their browsers: what
a thought!

But to suggest a seemingly endless list of "user customisations" to
prevent heightened exposure to irritating advertisers, phishing
attempts, malware and so on is to miss the point, just as Bill Gates
smugly does so (and I say this at the risk of sounding like a certain
other "contributor" to this newsgroup) by saying that computer software
isn't good enough and could be better/more secure/more stable, despite
running a software monopoly for the past decade or so and having an
unparalleled opportunity to do something about the situation instead of
just "milking it".

Every so often, discussions like these remind me of some ancient work I
once did on the topic of avoiding some of the issues raised by mobile
code and mobile content. Despite the likes of Mr Gates who will
probably try and persuade you that we're on the cutting edge
(presumably before demanding a premium to "sort it all out"), many of
the issues have been known about for a good while. Of course, that
doesn't mean that the software industry is in any hurry to do anything
about it.

Paul

 

[Matt Garrish]

Good for you. If I do that, I lose some customers. Your private war is a
joke, and one day you'll wake up. What a waste of energy.

LOL! Maybe this inane thread can finally die now...

Matt

 

[Paul Rubin]

But trying to keep your email world into a pure text-based
no-formatting-whatsoever world, that's a fantasy bubble that is bound
to burst, sooner rather than later.

I read mail over an ssh connection to a Unix shell. I have no easy
way to read html email with a graphics browser. I occasionally get
html email that I want to read. I save it in a file and read it with
lynx, which so far works perfectly well. I find html email to be a
PITA and as someone else said, html in email is an almost sure sign
that it's a message that I want to trash without reading it. But for
the rare exceptions, lynx as far as I know is 100% w3 standards
compliant, and it's plain text (and it works on terminals with no font
control) . So there's no incompatibility between html and pure
text-based display.

 

[Mike Meyer]

I read mail over an ssh connection to a Unix shell. I have no easy
way to read html email with a graphics browser.

You don't need a grahics browser - you just need a browser. I read
mail in emacs, and use emacs-w3m to view html in the mailer. Works for
most things, and doesn't have the nasty side effect of letting the
sender know I read it by fetching images from their web site.

I occasionally get html email that I want to read. I save it in a
file and read it with lynx, which so far works perfectly well. I
find html email to be a PITA and as someone else said, html in email
is an almost sure sign that it's a message that I want to trash
without reading it.

Unfortunately, I've found that HTML email comes in two flavors: That
which sets content-type to text/html in the headers, and that which
sets it to some form of multipart in the headers. I used to bounce all
mail of either form. Then I discovered that the AOL client - used by
my relatives - could *not* be set to not send HTML email. At least it
sends text/plain as well. On investigation, most legit email does
sends multipart/mixed, so I only reject mail whose sole content is
text/html.

<mike

 

[Paul Rubin]

You don't need a grahics browser - you just need a browser.

Right, precisely. I use lynx, as I explained. It renders the html as
plain text and doesn't violate any standards by doing so. The html is
nothing but a pain in the neck that lynx removes, so they may as well
send text email in the first place. Lynx shows that all the fancy
html formatting crap is just advisory at best. It's perfectly fine
for a browser to ignore it.

 

[Gordon Burditt]

HTML enables a heck of a lot of problems: "web bugs" in email,

I take it then you avoid browsers or use Lynx?

Last time I checked, it was impossible to send me an unsolicited
web site. It is trivial, however, to send unsolicited email or
post unsolicited articles on USENET.

No, I don't trust Lynx to read email or USENET articles.

No you FIX the
problems

And how do you fix the problem of unsolicited USENET articles?
(*ALL* of them are unsolicited to someone). Or unsolicited
email?

rather than wear a hair shirt. Same for email. Why should
rich expressions only be permitted to those with websites.

Web sites can't send you stuff unsolicited, and most of them have
enough stake in their reputation to keep the obnoxious stuff off
of them, since if they have viruses chances are you can't trust
buying anything from them. "web bugs" aren't a problem with web
sites since the server logs log *all* the hits, and they don't have
to use hidden ones. And I don't visit web sites without a good
reason to do so (that excludes seeing the URL in some SPAM). Oh,
yes, and Javascript is turned off.

Some people use email PRIMARILY for sharing photos.

And what does sharing photos (attachments) have to do with HTML?
USENET text groups are not the appropriate place for photos.

Gordon L. Burditt

 

[Roedy Green]

WHat the hell has that got to do with HTML email? Sending photos
is an example of what attachments are for.

Normally you send photos to grandma with captions under each photo.
That is far more convenient for the technopeasant receiver than
dealing with multiple attachments.

People keep thinking of email as a techie preserve.

 

[Roedy Green]

Yeah, yeah, and 640K is enough for everybody. Same song, different tune.

For how long. Surely attachments are a stop gap. Can you imagine
people sharing images that way 100 years from now?

Why should we wait for the future? The problems blocking easy to use
photo sharing are not technological but social.

 

[Roedy Green]

And how do you fix the problem of unsolicited USENET articles?
(*ALL* of them are unsolicited to someone). Or unsolicited
email?

Read my essay.
http://mindprod.com/projects.html/mailreadernewsreader.html

I talk around those problems.

It requires a fresh start.

 

[Roedy Green]

Show us *examples*! Do you create a style sheet for every site you
visit that overrides there classes? What?

Why don't you download a copy of Opera, see
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/opera.html

Then try out the feature. Click View | style | user

 

[Roedy Green]

If people want me to read their email, they should send it to me
in an open, universal format, which for email is plain text. It's
as simple as that.

This is pulling a King Canute. There is not even a mechanism in email
protocols to warn your correspondents of your demand. I have been
bugging Eudora for years for at least a bit in the address book to
record the recipient's preference for plain or formatted emails. They
have so far ignored me.

There is nothing wrong with formatted text. You are confusing
formatted text with spam.

You think you hated formatted text, but you really hate spam.

If your lover sent you a message with photo, and even musical
accompaniment, I doubt you would feel offended. It is the CONTENT
bugging you, not the HTML.

You imagine that the two are inexplicably linked. That is just because
the technology is immature. There is no fundamental reason that
formatted spam should have an easier time penetrating your defenses
than plain text spam. I am using Spamnix. It think it leaks about
50/50 formatted and plain text spam.

Eudora warns you of deceptive links in HTML. There are many more such
things that have yet to be done to deal with malicious emails. I
think we should focus on those rather than reverting to the days of
the TTY.I don't think it would buy you much. Formatted emails can't
hurt you if you don't allow them to automatically run any code. It is
unfair to blame formatting for the foolish practice off allowing
untrusted code to run without even an ok. They have nothing to do
with each other.

 

[Roedy Green]

I read mail over an ssh connection to a Unix shell. I have no easy
way to read html email with a graphics browser.

So the rest of the world should forgo rich communication because of
your obsolete software? How could anything every evolve with that
attitude?

 

[Dr.Ruud]

Mike Meyer:

Paul Rubin:

You don't need a grahics browser - you just need a browser. I read
mail in emacs, and use emacs-w3m to view html in the mailer. Works for
most things, and doesn't have the nasty side effect of letting the
sender know I read it by fetching images from their web site.


Unfortunately, I've found that HTML email comes in two flavors: That
which sets content-type to text/html in the headers, and that which
sets it to some form of multipart in the headers. I used to bounce all
mail of either form. Then I discovered that the AOL client - used by
my relatives - could *not* be set to not send HTML email. At least it
sends text/plain as well. On investigation, most legit email does
sends multipart/mixed, so I only reject mail whose sole content is
text/html.

Let procmail make all those decisions and transformations for you.

I have a maildir called 'raw' where I keep a copy of all non-spammish
mail.

Copies of the same messages also get delivered in the right mailboxes,
by procmail.
A message that contains only html, is piped though lynx -dump -stdin.
A message containing both HTML and a plain/text-part, is de-mime-d,
leaving only the plain/text-part (unless that part contains only a silly
remark).
Footers and long signatures are limited or even deleted. Etc., etc. (I
like my mail cooked.)

One of the reasons that I started with Perl, is that I want to rewrite
procmail in Perl.

 

[Mike Meyer]

Read my essay.
http://mindprod.com/projects.html/mailreadernewsreader.html

I talk around those problems.

Actually, you present a design that forces a solution that makes them
do what you want down their throats, never mind what they want, or
what they've been doing. It shows an amazing ignorance about the
internet and how people behave on it. Like most antispam proposals, it
won't actually stop spam, just force spammers to concentrate on
different channels. You seem to have randomly broken quoting for
people who download mail and read it offline, and for any medium
that's unreliable or doesn't reliably deliver messages "in order" -
which includes mail and news. Virus writers will love the ability to
change peoples address books remotely. The problem of differing
character sets is technically solved. Practically, the solution
doesn't work because people implementing the software ignore the
standards. What's your server going to do when it gets messages with
characters in them that aren't valid in the charset that it's declared
as being? Better yet, what's it going to do when the characters are
valid, but the declared charset isn't the one the author actually
used? You implementation sketch only covers the client talking to the
first server (in that it requires the client to encrypt a challange
phrase with the private key belonging the email id, which is
presumably what 2822 uses for the envelope sender). Most mail on the
internet goes through at least two servers, and news is much
worse. For instance, your messages apparently passed through 10
servers getting to me. You really have to deal with store and forward,
or convince a large number of corporations that potentially hostile
users should be allowed to talk directly to their mail servers, which
isn't very likely. Kudos for recognizing that spam needs to be dealt
with by people with guns, but you lose half of them for making ISPS
liable for it.

I also read the comment about wanting an automated "Ask them to run my
browser in my favorite configuration", which is equally naive. A lot
of sites have such cruft on them already. I find them funny - I surf
the web on three different platforms, none of them Windows. Any
pointer to download a new browser or plugin for Windows just impresses
me with the authors lack of skills. The only browser I know of that
runs on all three platforms is Opera, and it's something radically
different on one of the three. Even should you get the platform right,
almost nobody is going to bother upgrading following the download
links. The very small percentage of users who are real geeks will
silently thank you for the notice, and update their software. Most
users will ignore it so long as the page isn't obviously broken. For
those for whom it's broken, all but small percentage will simply find
some other site to visit. I'd suggest that anyone thinking about writing

It requires a fresh start.

You think you're the only person - and probably not the first - to
propose such? People a lot smarter than either of us, with a lot more
pull and a lot more reason to want it to happen have worked on this -
and it ain't happened yet. I wouldn't bet on it happening anytime
soon.

<mike

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

I take it then you avoid browsers or use Lynx? No you FIX the
problems rather than wear a hair shirt.

No, I avoid browsers that are broken, e.g. those that have ActiveX. If
people send a link to a website that includes ActiveX, then no matter how
great the advantages, the disadvantages are more.

Likewise I avoid emails that are broken. If it looks like it will contain
web-bugs, javascript exploits, or badly formatted unreadable text, then I
avoid any mail client that can't display it in plain text.

And by "looks like", I mean "contains any HTML".

Same for email. Why should
rich expressions only be permitted to those with websites.

Because the disadvantages of HTML email are greater than the advantages.
If people mail me HTML mail, I make a snap judgement -- trash it or read
it? It is usually trash it. There are only so many emails with purple text
on indigo backgrounds that a man can read before deciding that the
tasteless, clueless masses should never been given the ability to format
text.

Some people use email PRIMARILY for sharing photos.

Which you can do by attaching the photo to the email. Even mutt or pine
can attach binary files to an email.