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Borking Outlook Express
Johannes writes: "Swedish Gnuheter has a story on Nick Moffitt arranging with his X-headers in way that makes it impossible to read his email with Microsoft WebTV or Outlook Express. Moffitt states: 'The folks using Outlook Express have locked themselves into a
limited subset of the information that can flow over the Internet, and
are blaming me personally for not limiting my transmissions to that
outlook-centric subset.'
See also original email (in English). Immoral? Or just right?" Looks like Moffit's "Who, me?" attitude is tongue in cheek, but the creative header changes here are hilarious.
it seems to me somebody is just trying to be a jackass.
...is to disclude them as much as possible!
If he were serious (which he doesn't appear to be), then I'd say its waaay to risky for the linux community. Shutting out everyone is one of the first ways to fail in bringing Linux into the mainstream...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Many people have somehow drawn the premature conclusion that
the reason I do this is because of some sort of ideological zealotry.
What I do with my e-mails was certainly informed by my technical
experience with free software, but it is not done out of a desire to
change anyone.
Ok, so he says that he is NOT doing it to change what mailer people use (hence "chang[ing] anyone") But then...
There are two ways, actually, that one can meet the
crackmonkey mailing list dress code. One is to simply use Free
Software, and not use a mailer that requires you to accept a license
that makes you promise not to share with your friends. Another is to
continue to use your Windows-based mailer, but hack the headers of
your message so as not to betray your use of the software.
So forcing users to have to change mailers or hack the existing one does not constitute a "change" anymore?
--
"Everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around." - They Might Be Giants, "We Want a Rock"
I read the english e-mail and he explains his position (I don't quite understand the hack though) -- rather than blocking totally Microsoft's client, why not make it display "This message would be readable if you used any other email client than Microsoft's. For a list of good clients, some of which are free, visit *url to Download.com or something*."
Same thing for anti-Microsoft mailing lists which disalow Outlook -- kindly inform anything other than Outlook is ok (due to security concerns, etc.) and provide a list of free or not-too-expensive email clients (or again a link to download.com and the like).
Sounds like a much better (and beneficial) use of time.
Thanks,
--
Matt
What was our reaction to MS disabling access to the MSN sites? And this is different exactly how?
This is immature and childish. I hope he comes to his senses and refrains from this kind of petty vendettas.
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
RMS is an advocate of asking people to send the document in a non MS format that can be read using open software.
I wonder what he thinks of this?
I love the audacity of this guy playing god and everything and I could see lots of people here snickering but come on. This is ridiculous, do you honestly expect to win over people to open source software with people pulling this crap?
I have never written any software, webpages, etc... to exclude a subset of my potential users. To me this is incredibly arrogant and downright snobby.
begin Kris Herzog quotation:
> I know I may have said some harsh things on the Tron list, but I'd
> actually like to put all that aside, and personally thank you, as
> you've given me an idea to write an article about the larger
> picture.
>
> Basically, I'm trying to patch together ideas into an article that
> addresses the issues that we all have recently suffered through.
>
> So I'll ask you the same questions that I have of others, and I'd
> appreciate your complete honesty and I will promise that I will NOT
> turn this into a personal attack on you. This was never my
> intention.
Thank you for taking the time to approach me and hear me out.
I'll try to explain my side of things as best I can, here.
> So here we go:
>
> "In the particular example I am using, someone who was exploiting a
> Microsoft Outlook bug by modifying his X-Headers to cause his
> messages to be read as attachments on a mailing list.
As a matter of fact, that's factually incorrect. While it's
true that my headers do have some doozies, they're mostly innocuous.
The worst one probably is the X-WebTV-STationery, which sets my text
to black-on-black for anyone reading with a WebTV. WebTVs are pretty
rare nowadays, but that's easily overridden I'm told. The +++ath bug
only affects your ISP's modems (which are NOT likely to have the
hangup flaw), and it's formatted wrong anyway. That one's more of a
troll.
No, the attachment bug is far more subtle than that. It
doesn't happen based on headers, which are rightfully the section of
an e-mail that mail readers are SUPPOSED to process. Instead, the bug
is that any message that has the word "begin" at the beginning of a
line will be treated as a garbled attachment from that point on.
It's a horrible bug in Outlook, though not one that appears
when an exchange server is used (I can explain why later if you like).
Microsoft has not even acknowledged it as a bug, and apparently recent
versions of Outlook Express have had features REMOVED that once let
the user read the mails anyway. It used to be that the user could
select some sort of "view source" option and view the message
unprocessed. I'm told that this no longer works.
My other two headers are mostly annoyances. I set a Reply-By
that flags my messages as red, and my X-Message-Flag pretends that the
reason they can't read my mail is because of some censorship software
somewhere blocking my message from their eyes.
Even if I were to remove all of the custom headers from my
messages, the simple fact is that my ordinary internet-standard
plain-text messages will still cause this problem. In fact, the
problem was discovered *accidentally*, when Bruce Sterling distributed
a document via e-mail that had the word "begin" appear at the start of
a line in the middle of one of his paragraphs.
> Another example is a mailing list that will reject any mail from
> Windows-based clients.
Yes. It's true that I run a mailing list that does not allow
posting from Windows users. Many people complain about this, but in
my mind I see it as no different than a restaurant or dance hall
having a dress code. It raises the bar for entry to the list, and
ensures that users really want to be there.
There are two ways, actually, that one can meet the
crackmonkey mailing list dress code. One is to simply use Free
Software, and not use a mailer that requires you to accept a license
that makes you promise not to share with your friends. Another is to
continue to use your Windows-based mailer, but hack the headers of
your message so as not to betray your use of the software.
Both methods demonstrate an effort made to post to the list,
as well as a certain degree of technical acumen. Our IRC channel on
slashnet.org has the same sort of dress code: You can use a
non-Windows IRC client, or you can fake your version information.
> This caused problems for many people using Microsoft products, and
> as such, I'm trying to gain perspectives from both the
> Microsoft/Non-Microsoft sides to help describe the situation of
> people who believe in open-source to the point of zealotry, and how
> this can be addressed in the modern 'free society' of the Internet
> and the spirit of "Open Source" in the fact that it supports a
> non-discriminatory feeling and policy. And how some people have
> taken the battle to new level with this kind of behavior."
First of all, I am not a member of the Open Source movement.
They seem only interested in how you can make money from free
software. I am actually (believe it or not) more concerned with the
ethical and moral issues involved in the subjugation of human beings
through restrictive copyright and patent law. I consider myself a
member of the Free Software movement.
Many people have somehow drawn the premature conclusion that
the reason I do this is because of some sort of ideological zealotry.
What I do with my e-mails was certainly informed by my technical
experience with free software, but it is not done out of a desire to
change anyone.
Many people have also mistakenly joined the open source/free
software cause with the anti-microsoft cause. This is foolhardy,
since there are many proprietary programs for GNU/Linux and BSD whose
licenses are just as antisocial as any Windows license. You'll note
that there are a lot of proprietary programs that don't suffer the
flaws of Outlook Express, and they can read my messages just fine.
Don't you think that if I were doing this out of some sort of free
software zealotry, I'd break ALL proprietary mailers?
Also, there is the mistaken impression that I am somehow
discriminating against a whole class of people by writing e-mail that
Outlook refuses to read. I see this as a curious by-product of
American culture, whereby your consumer tastes somehow create a
ready-made cultural identity for you. There are a great many FREELY
AVAILABLE mailers (for Windows, even) that are capable of reading
plain-text messages. You yourself are using Eudora, which is just
such a program!
> "Would you view behavior like this as a detriment to the open source
> movement as a whole?"
[...]
> Honestly, I'd like to hear your side to this, the reasons why you
> feel the way you do, and why you chose to follow the path you have.
I've been using Unix-based mailers for well over a decade.
I've been mailed countless illegible attachments from Windows users
over the past ten years. It's immature of me, I know, but to some
degree turnabout is fair play.
I don't do it to win people over (and yes, it definitely
generates a lot of ill-will for free software among those who
mistakenly associate it with the cause), although I have seen many
people for whom this was the straw that broke the dromedary's back.
If people think my messages are worth reading, then they will (like
the dedicated posters to the crackmonkey mailing list) adjust their
computing environment to accomodate.
The folks using Outlook Express have locked themselves into a
limited subset of the information that can flow over the Internet, and
are blaming me personally for not limiting my transmissions to that
outlook-centric subset. If I were to post all of my messages in
Russian, even fewer people on the Tron list would be able to
understand them; but would there then be an uproar demanding my
removal from the list?
--
INFORMATION GLADLY GIVEN BUT SAFETY REQUIRES AVOIDING UNNECESSARY CONVERSATION
01234567 <- The amazing* indent-o-meter!
^ (*: Indent-o-meter may not actually amaze.)
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
that I wouldn't see this as a GOOD thing if I used Outlook?
From the site now:
/data/html/gnuheter/mainfile.php on line 17
/data/hacht-ema-el/gnuheter/mainafiler.peea-haich- a-pee on der lingna sevetoon. Der databesa ist "BORK BORK BORK".
Warning: Too many connections in
Unable to select database
Shouldn't that be
"Werniga: Esha tue amany conecctionsa in der
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I have the same problem with this as any pro-my-agenda-over-yours approach. If what we are seeking is equality/respect, resorting to the same tactics are unlikely to legitimately modify behavior. It's not through lynchings and beatings that the civil rights movement succeeded. It's not through imperial conquest that India became an independent state.
And it isn't going to be through holier-than-thou rhetoric couched in do-unto-others-as-they-do-unto-you that the open source/free software movements are going to make converts.
I sure hope that this is a joke on that fellows part.
You want to know why those who are not technologicly gifted are afraid of Linux? Things like this. Silly, immature, and asinine elitism.
To punish people because of the mail client they use is pointless. Does the various versions of Outlook have problems? You bet. You don't like it. Fine. DON'T RUN IT.
Things like this destroy the credibility of the Linux community in general. You want businesses and government to think that the Linux community is serious, focused, and can provide better products. Stupid stunts like this do not give a good impression.
So he wants people to be able to use any kind of software to read email, and is annoyed that he gets documents from Windows users which are unreadable in his email program. So his response is to make sure that other people cannot necessarily read his email messages, and he expects others to adjust their computing environment to read what he sends. How is this any different from his adjusting his own computing environment to read what they send? Or is it that he just believes that the Internet should be mutually unintelligible (I mean, more than it already is)?
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
(I'm confused about how bork is the appropriate word in this context.)
This seems pretty juvenile to me. He is forging headers. First he forges a bunch of X-headers which were specifically created as a place for mailers to put proprietary information. Then he forges the Reply-By header, which is part of RFC 1327. (Shame on Microsoft for trying to bring overdue items to the attention of the user!)
His only valid complaint is that apparently Outlook has a bug regarding lines that begin with "begin". Wow, a mail client has a bug.
I'm reminded of mutt's tagline: All mail clients suck.
On German Usenet (the de,* hierarchy), this is already common practice. In particular, these pseudo-attachments are used to fool OE users to believe that articles carry some kind of mail worm, without really using attachments (so that the posters keep to the letter of netiquette).
However, it doesn't seem to help much, quite a few people are still using Outlook Express. Other newsreaders such as Gnus display some of these pseudo-attachments as real ones, too. (And I don't think this is a bug, it's just built-in uudecode support.)
And Outlook Express has much more critical bugs, for example in quoted-printable handling together with quoting.
The author claims that viewing the raw source of a message no longer works in OE. I have the latest version (OE 6) and all I have to do is right-click Properties for the message, and click on 'Message Source...' under the Details tab.
Oh, and BTW, I was unable to reproduce the 'begin' bug.
Hands in my pocket
If you don't want people to be able to read your email, fine. But he is limiting a lot of corporations that have Outlook setup as mandatory email type. Big deal, one knucklehead I probably wouldn't want to get email from anyway. Sure it's kinda funny, in your face, MS attitude, but in the long run, he is only hurting himself.
Sent from your iPad.
Since we all know the FBI and NSA can decrypt pretty much at will, and they all use Outlook to read our messages, perhaps this is the best way to secure it . Well just muck the header up, theyll be too busy trying to decrypt someting that isnt encrypted to figure it out .
I am of course being my usual smart ass self.
I think someone should be free to send whatever the hell they want HOWEVER they want to their colluges, a bunch of people griping this is bad, bad for linux, what does RMS say, WHO CARES !!!!
This, if it were acually serious, it isnt. WOULD be a matter between the sender and the recipient.
Youre not going to be in or do business long if noone with outlook can read your mail.
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
This post is in reply to your "exclude microsoft users" post, and the attitude in the article exemplified by this quote: ``It's true that I run a mailing list that does not allow posting from Windows users. Many people complain about this, but in my mind I see it as no different than a restaurant or dance hall having a dress code.''
When did we become such elitists? When users are arbitrarily excluded and abused in the name of "free software," I begin to think that pehaps these same people now toting the supremacy of their operating system might in another time promote the supremacy of their language, nationality, or race.
I see nothing productive in this article or the attitude of its creator. The point of our movement is to produce good, useful software, and to make it available to everyone. The point is not to force them to use it, or to punish those who don't. Where's the freedom in that?
It'd just make the "mainstream" IT community reject linux, and its users, even faster. [They] We've decided, more or less, on an engine for the car, the highway has been built, some people just like to play bumpercars.
Linux is a segway. It claims it will change the world; some people try it out; some people implement it mainstream; Most people just stare and say "uhh." the world just isn't built for it yet.
[To appease the BSD Zealots: Linux is a tricycle, *BSD is a Segway. If you are not a BSD Zealot, ignore this line.]
UNIX is a Freightliner. Good when you need a lot of power and a big footprint to haul a massive amount of.. stuff.
Windows 2000 is an Automatic Transmission Ford. Good enough for the average person, they don't have to worry about it too terribly much. Most mechanics know how to fix them.
Win2K server is a nice, large Dodge. Good for hauling midsize loads. Can still be fixed by most mechanics, if they are adequately skilled. Can be upgraded to Cummins Turbo Dulie model with extended bed if neccesary. Maximum of 32 Wheels.
The analogies are endless.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If outlook is broken such that it thinks that any line that begins with the word "begin" implies the presense of an attachment, that is not the fault of the person sending the message.
However, to deny access to an irc channel because of the client used IS rather immature. If the client conforms properly to the protocol, there should be no reason to bar it solely based on its origin OS. No more so than denying IE or Netscape based only on the User-Agent setting. If I code properly formed html code that breaks the browser though, thats not my problem.
And its the fault of website designers who create buggy code, be it by hand or by use of a faulty
webpage designer program (frontpage and the like).
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I believe what the original post was referring to is his statement that his mailing list blocks mails from Outlook users, regardless of how readable or standard their mails are, simply based on what client they use (by looking at what it reports in the headers). This is identical to MSN blocking Linux or Mozilla browser users based on HTTP headers. Both can be gotten around by reporting fake headers (in fact he suggests that this is what Outlook users could do if they really wanted to send to his list), but both are nonsensical and wrong.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Everyone seems to be so quick as to deride his methods as immature. I missed the part where he asked your opinion though? It's a guy, and his list, and if you don't like it, you can start your own list I suppose.
MS's access restriction seemed to be Microsoft's testing just how far it could go with it's power - how many non-IE users will complain if we do this?
This guy's action seems to be his attempt to fight back, and educate. Do you use Outlook? if not, how many illegible attachments and other garbage have you gotten from people who _do_? I'd consider this to be revenge/payback to the Outlook-using world, and not foolish at all - people need to see what is wrong with Outlook and this helps point it out - anyone on this list will probably be technical enough to get why he's doing this anyway, and be understanding (it's a bug in Outlook, after all...)
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
Whatever you think of his politics I love the idea of a snooty doorman looking at the M$ users and making them continue to stand in line outside the club. ;)
It raises the bar for entry to the list, and ensures that users really want to be there. There are two ways, actually, that one can meet the crackmonkey mailing list dress code. One is to simply use Free Software[] Another is to continue to use your Windows-based mailer, but hack the headers of your message so as not to betray your use of the software.[] Both methods demonstrate an effort made to post to the list, as well as a certain degree of technical acumen.
I hate to say it but this probably works wonders. I remember when alt.hackers instituted a policy in which it was listed as a "moderated" newsgroup but there was no moderator. So any submitted stories were simply mailed into the ether.
You had to edit your header so that you 'approved' your own post. Yes, it was trivial but a quick comparison between that group and 'alt.2600' proved that even that low a bar worked wonders for the level of content.
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
Which is pretty easy to do. Just add to your headers:
X-Message-Flag: This message would be readable if you used any other email client than Microsoft's. For a list of good clients, some of which are free, visit *url to Download.com or something*.
morcego
If 'From' or 'Reply-To' contains 'nick@zork.net'
: reject
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Only on Slashdot would so many people applaud this story.
If Microsoft employees sent out emails with headers that made them unviewable in Eudora or other email programs, people on here would be throwing a fit.
I use Eudora and hate Outlook (have to use Windows here...), and I have bundles of idiot coworkers that happily click on virus emails here and at home... but the hypocrisy here is ridiculous. Were the situation reversed we would be crying for another lawsuit against M$.... how is this different?
Mark
Who's applauding? It's funny, but yeah, it's childish, and the guy knows it, and says so. Nobody's applauding this guy, that I know of...we chuckle at his stance, and move on. Where's the hypocrisy?
:)
I get the feeling you'd answer that, but you're too damn chicken to post under your own name, AC. So never mind, then.
But what does my opinion matter, I just vote here. It's not like I have any money or anything.
Read the letter. It explicitly states that the view source option is gone in the most recent version.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Anyway, the time will come when I'm the one to post results. I'll use Gnumeric, I think. I have been toying with the idea of actually posting a Gnumeric XML file to the list... Revenge!!! ;-)
Well, I'm not going to do it just for the revenge. It has to be illustrating some point.
This got me thinking: Since Gnumeric's native file format is based on XML, it should be possible to have it sensibly parsed and displayed in a browser that does support XML, including IE, given....?
OK, so this is the question: What would it take for people to get a readable table on their browser, straight from a Gnumeric XML file?
If this would work, it would illustrate a major point: How much more flexible these products are. Those who have experienced all M$ lock-ins and unreadable documents can suddenly access a document in a format they've never heard of.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Yup - you guessed it. *click*
I also can't read L337. It's exclusionary speech, meant to be read only by other members of the clique.
Free Software is a philosophy. Part of that philosophy is to share with as many people as possible. It's not a stick to beat people with, or something for the privileged techno-elite.
Go ahead - keep Outlook users from reading your mail. Write in L337 if you want and keep people over the age of 17 from reading your mail. Heck, write in Swedish! Do you suppose my desire to read your deathless prose will make me learn Swedish?
Yup, you guessed it. *click*
Another lumpen-proletarian
I must say that it is very irritating how non-compliant Outlook and Outlook Express have been (they may be better now). I gpg-sign my email messages, and the email is sent in multipart/MIME, with the signature having its own part. So far, everyone I know who uses Outlook/OE say that the message is blank with "some unreadable attachments". I find this horribly annoying.
I'm done bitching for the day, now. I promise.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
--
I noticed
It's getting about time to leave everywhere
"When did we become such elitists?"
Uhm - the guy who is doing this is a member of the Free software camp, i.e. an RMS follower. I don't remember if RMS believes in "forcing the issue" but I have to agree that it is detrimental to ALL computer users, let alone to users of proprietary software.
To be honest - I think it's a childish behavior.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Would that make Mac OS the Delorian of Operating systems?
;)
With OS X being the back to the future car that can time travel and fly
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
I think that he's just tring to get people to realize how stupid it is to limit yourself to email that only Outlook can read.
I use outlook every day and I recieve email that I cannot read. Why? Because outlook blocks exe files from me. Now you say that I shouldn't be getting them, well my co-workers send them to me! They don't know that I can't read them because they all use Netscape Mail. I have to switch to outlook because we are switching to MS Outlook servers and so soon they will have to as well. However in the real world things are not that simple.
I think that we need to press MS to make their software more compatable with badly written mail messages. Not get mad at someone who writes bad messages. If you don't wish to recieve badly written messages, then don't use the email system.
The whole point of the X-Headers he's using is to let people extend the functionality of email. It's the implementors fault if they assume the only X-Headers written will be by complaint programs! That's just silly.
Right on, slashdot. ;)
I have to come to defense of Outlook Express. (God help me...).
If you're not familiar with the two Outlook products, here's an overview: Normal "Outlook" is the crappy Microsoft Office-integrated, do-it-all, unsecure, scheduling, Exchange-client, mail reader and more and Outlook Express is simply the POP/IMAP that comes with IE. The latter is a great mail client.
I don't use Internet Explorer anymore - I've been using Mozilla since 9.5 (a few months now) and I love it. But I can't use the Mozilla mail client yet, it's just not mature enough. OE is simple to use, fast, manages the 10,000 emails I have in folders without problems, doesn't make me manage each email account separately (though I could if I wanted), decent filtering, higher-security, etc. Whoever wrote this app at Microsoft had a clue as it's really well done. There's not much wrong with it, except, I guess, whatever this guy is ranting about and the fact that it's a Microsoft product.
The last bit does bother me as I'm slowly weaning myself from M$ products. I have TRIED many other email programs (for Windows) and not been satisfied at all. The Bat!, Eudora, Mozilla, Opera's Email bit and others that have come and gone from my system. Until they're more like OE, I'm not switching...
I'm really pulling for the Mozilla team and gave my feedback to some of the Mail guys during the Bug Week or whatever it's called. But I'm not a C++ programmer (and even if I was, I'm not installing Microsoft Visual C++ to develop with Mozilla...) so I just have to wait until it gets mature enough for daily use.
One good thing though is that the Mozilla importer is great for pulling in my emails from OE already. So when the UI is up to snuff, it'll be a snap to switch over. (And then I can seriously consider switching over to Linux full-time also...)
That's it.
-Russ
Me
While I'm at it, why do most Windows users get in such a huff when asked to send a file in a more readily readable format? For expample, where I work, we get graphic files in all kinds of formats and people will get snippy with us that we don't use MS Publisher (um...sorry, we use a real desktop publishing program). How is a wrong assumption on their part the reciepient's fault?
-sk
Please give more info on this bug - i tried sending mail to myself, consisting of two paragrpahs of text separated by the word "begin" on a line by itself. It rendered just fine. There was no attachment bogosity
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
Oh, we duplicated it plenty here today, we got a wave of the latest Outlook virus in, it's called MyParty, and it exploits the Begin bug to create an attachment that isn't really an attachment.
Basically it has a message, then
Begin 666 www.myparty.yahoo.com
then encoded data.
.com is executable in Windows, so it happily decodes the "attachment" and makes it runnable.
It can bypass some mail gateway scanners, because it isn't a valid attachment, only to Outlook.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
First of all he is not being a petulant child. He points out a perfectly valid way of making a PLAINTEXT email message illegigible to Outlook users: start a line with the word begin. I would be pretty miffed if the provider of my mail client of choice has made decisions that dictate the manner in which I compose the body of an email. I think most rational Windows users would regard this "innovative" feature to be a flagrant abuse of power on the part of my email client vendor. The other tricks he plays are less insightful but bring to light a common complaint of non-Microsoft software vendors: Microsoft blatantly disregards many standards an hijacks others for personal gain. The second point, exclusion of Outlook clients from his mailing list is also not without precedent. If I wish to create a locale where like minded people can gather I will definitely put up some simple barriers to entry for people who cannot share my opinions. In this case, he has made some decisions about how email clients should work and he only wishes to share his list with those with similar points of view. Since it is his list and not a general public utility it is his right.
was of a recent Ask Slashdot article that talks about the unnecessary HTML formatting in Windows mailers. The problems are that they force you to reply in HTML, and include HTML headers that are impossible to not include in replies. There is nothing like having to spend time reformatting a whole email discussion just because some Windows mailer HTMLized the whole thing. This guy has the right idea; Let's just not include MS mailers if they are not going to follow the standard and make everything diffcult. MS tries to reinvent the wheel too much
Say we all started doing this, would it have any effect? Probably not.
Your average Outlook user is the same person who just accepts that they have to reboot their computer 3 times/day and has never quite figured out that that "Windows Update" link on their start menu does. Basically, I see 2 scenarios:
1. User tries to open email, it doesn't work. User thinks "oh well, maybe outlook's not feeling well, I'll try again later" and keeps going... probably forgetting about the email altogether
2. User tries email, it doesn't work. User tries again later, still doesn't work. User contacts sender and gets pissed off when sender says "yeah, I rigged it so you couldn't open my message with that crappy mail program. I'm so 1337."
I mean sure it's fun to screw with exclusive MS users every once in a while but this just makes the sender look like a little brat...
Actuaries - making accountants look interesting since 1949
Gaah!
For several years now, I have received the occasional e-mail about how I should never write e-mail in HTML, but stick to plaintext. This has usually been followed by how Microsoft doesn't care about standards (I use an MS client), raah raah raah, and the key argument is that everybody should always be able to read your information. To me, that argument is about equivalent to "nobody on the highway is allowed to drive faster than the slowest car". If we enforced people to be compliant with all standards, we'd effectively kill progress. Even though we may not like the current trend of progress, there is still always change going on.
Anyway, here we have the exact same thing, only lockout on purpose rather than implicitly by upgraded technology, targeted against a specific client. This guy is saying outright that "Sorry if you can't read my e-mail, here are a bunch of alternatives", just like I use to do when people complain they can't read HTML.
The chief difference is that I don't send HTML mail out of malice, I do it because I think it adds value to the mail (I can format for readability more than I can in 76-column ASCII). This guy croaks certain clients because he doesn't like the clients, or rather, their maker. He's giving people trouble on purpose, and boasts about it.
That is just amazingly stupid.
Crystal Falcon
There are only two things infinite, the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not so sure about the universe. --Albert Einstein
X-Message: This could be an Outlook virus! Are you sure you want to continue using Outlook?
Wish I could take credit for it... A person who receives an email with that in the header will have a red flag displayed next to the item in the list of emails and the message itself will display at the top of the email display when the message is read.
There's more to it than this.
what can linus' mother do with her tongue that makes guys feel "lucky"?
That man tried to kill mah Daddy
I don't see what the big deal is.
IRC channels regularly kick users that have proven themselves to be inept.
Bots are usually set up to kick users that log on IRC as root.
How is kicking Windows users any different?
IRC channels are privately controlled, and if they don't like you for whatever reason, it's fair game, they don't have to "be fair" or "play nice", if they don't want to.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I've been looking for a decent email client for windows (not for me, but for my coworkers). I wish I could get something along the lines of Kmail, but so far I can't find any. Eudora is way too bloated for my liking, and most of the others expire. I want someting that's easy to use (nice big "check mail" button, decent address book, not too cluttered). I'm sorry to say that outlook express looks to be my best option so far. Can someone show me (or them, like I said before I use Kmail) the light?
I see nothing productive in this article or the attitude of its creator. The point of our movement is to produce good, useful software, and to make it available to everyone. The point is not to force them to use it, or to punish those who don't. Where's the freedom in that?
Well spoken. But the bottom line is... it's his choice. If you don't like it, too bad, don't participate. This in essence is what freedom is all about. How free is it if you make him conform to your idea of what is normal? It may feel free to you, but what about to him? I run a restaurant that has a dress code and we also do not allow smoking crack on the premises. My restaurant, my rules. You don't like how it impinges on your freedom... too bad, go somewhere else.
In this particular case, you are free to participate, simply by conforming to his rules. Too much work for you?? Don't understand how to do it?? These are the criteria, deal with it.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
I think your point is valid, though some of the things he does is a bit different. A lot of these things are exploiting bugs in Outlook Express to show the low level of QA that has gone into the product. What MSN did was simply check the string and block out any non-IE browser, not even letting the browsers *try* to render the page, and when that check was bypassed, it was found there was no functional reason for the check.
Of course, one issue I take with his methods (from what little I can tell from them), is that half of the little tricks he pulls are not highlighting bugs in Outlook Express, but using features of Outlook Express in an annoying way. For example, the set text and bgcolor both to black looks more like using a WebTV specific thing to do something you could do to anyone with HTML mail anyway. Also, the reply-by field to make his messages red is along these lines. Highlighting messages that request immediate attention or should have been replied to by then should be highlighted.
The one thing that he does different from feature abuse is the use of the 'begin' bug. That truly highlights a bug in Outlook and that is a valid point. Just like the bug where you can crash anything from NT to XP (except the 9x series) by creating a weird file and doing a type on it in a cmd window....
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I'm going to follow suit...
I'm sick of receiving emails from people I know at my company that use outlook... and they are full of some meta-data syntax for meet scheduling and so forth... the responsibility always seems to be mine to figure out what they contain. Now I can do the same thing back to them!
Sad tho, the net is supposed to be about interoperability. first a fence goes up, then another...
Actually, you can use Netscape mail with "Outlook" (really Exchange) servers - I do it every day. Just have your admin turn on the IMAP connectivity option (whatever it's called, IMAP something anyway) on your Exchange server. There's no reason at all to jump into the security hole that is Outlook.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
When did we become such elitists?
This is Slashdot. Just about every post involves elitism, from the constant MS bashing, to the contempt towards the rest of the population for not subscribing to whatever extreme ideologies the posters do, to the reaction towards the most minor technical mistake with pages upon pages of scorn. Personally I find this amusing, though not out of extreme hatred of MS.
I recieve a LOT of mail. Much of it is from Windows users.
Those users expect me to be able to read their Word format files without complaint. (Like I am going to pay almost $400 for a word processor for 1-2 documents a week.)
They expect that I read their html formatted mail with bizzare IE-only extensions.
These are the same people who become totally baffled if I send them a ASCII document with Unix line wraps.
At some point you get tired of dealing with people who expect the world to conform to their expectations and platform while making *no* effort to adapt to anything outside of their narrow world-view.
My method of dealing with people who send Word documents is to return the favor by sending them Star Office format. It is amazing how much they complain about it. They expect me to install a very expensive package, but are totally unwilling to install something that costs them next to nothing. ($50 if they buy the boxed version.)
What I find even more interesting are the people who seem to be backing the Outlook user in this "fight". The Outlook bug that is being exploited is quite old. Not only has Microsoft refused to fix it, it appears that they have removed the work-around. (I still do not see why people continue to use Outlook. The only reason that I hear from people is because they need the calendaring support and shared folders. There are other programs that do similar things. They are just being lazy.)
Part of the "PC" movement in this country is the unwillingness (in fact that absolute abhorence) to tell someone when they are being stupid. Error-correction is no longer tolerated because someone's feelings might get hurt. Since when did the most sensitive and stupid gain control of what should or should not be done?
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
I have to say, I'd like to find a really good approach for dealing with mailers with built-in prejudicial statements in them.
You know the kind, where you get to see disparaging comments like
as if you are using a deficient MUA when you see such text.I'd really like a 2-3 sentence autoreply text that could bounce some of those MS Word attachments with similar pronouncements about
Most people simply have no idea what standards are, nor the ways or the degree to which they pay for the IT infrastructure that they currently use.Their responses are usually quizzical and predictable, "Uhh, so what does it look like to you when Word launches?" Answer: Word doesn't launch. It requires money to launch. It requires that you buy the whole banana to get Word. (There used to be Ted Rall cartoon years ago that parodied the whole issue during the browser war years "Works best with MS House!"
People so much consider these things like .doc to be standards, that they ought to be made into bona fide standards that are publicly documented, including all the quirks of proper display, instead of just glossing over that they cannot be displayed without paying money to see them, even if its bundled into the cost of your new PC or the Microsoft Enterprise License Agreement for Office, which is probably priced more inelastically than gasoline.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
This is really no different from the countless web sites with such poorly-written code that users are forced to use IE for the page to display at all. Stop giving yourselves ulcers over something so insignificant in the daily course of life.
-Legion
Come on. Get over yourself. Equating OS/software "religious" wars to real-world racism and intolerance is a bit of a stretch. They are completely different issues. I don't hear you crying "elitism" about all the websites out there that are unusable with any browser except IE, or that require Flash.
Actually, I see this kind of strategy as a Good Thing -- it's a good way to raise people's awareness of the general Suckiness of M$ and their products. Broken software, free or propriatary, needs to be rooted out and destroyed.
The dress code analogy is a good one -- it's his list to do with as he pleases. If he wants to exclude M$ users, that is his perogative. For a technical mailing list, it's not that bad an idea at all to force prospective users to have enough clue to have to exersize their craniums a little to be able to join. Just think of how many idiots we could get rid of here on
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
It'd just make the "mainstream" IT community reject linux, and its users, even faster.
Which will not be as easy. My mail client (mutt) just displays everything with my settings and let me be the judge what to read and what to ignore.
Of course this assumes an RFC2822 enabled user...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted and ignored otherwise.
Yes, let's compare a little techno-humor (no matter how meanspirited) to racism. Because as we all know, discrimination on the basis of operating system is plain evil and no one can change their operating system the way they can change their race or gender.
Also, Linux users are widely known to dominate the world, and picking on these defenseless Microsoft users is just plain terrible. God help those poor MS Souls in need!
And in closing, let me remind you that Microsoft and its user-base never reverse discriminates against non-MS-users. The benevolent community leaders in Redmond, persecuted as they are by the mainstream, never stoop to such ugly tactics as browser exclusive features or dirty almost-standard protocol tricks. And even though they don't have to, they work overtime to make sure that all non-MS programs and documents work seamlessly with MS applications on the off chance that someone just has to run Windows, or Outlook, or Internet Explorer, or Word, or Excel, or Access, or IIS, or some other program that almost no one uses.
I do not have a signature
Facts:
k b; en-us;Q260822
The actual exploit he is abusing is described here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=
and is triggered by the text:
"begin " at the beginning of a line, followed by some text. Outlook renders from the begin onwards as an attachment, even without a matching "end".
The headers actually do different stuff, as described here:
http://www.rodos.net/outlook/
Now the headers by themselves are of minor amusement, the begin exploit is extremely discourteous on public mailing lists, as for digest members, it destroys the rest of the disgest - ie. it affects the posts of others.
Opinion:
Nick seems to think he's being terribly clever, by putting this "begin " in his attribution, so that his every mail is deliberately disruptive to public mailing lists. The whole thing is just a "look how clever I am" stunt and his actions justifications are purile in the extreme.
Don't condone this behaviour if you object when people send you unreadable html mail, or when script kiddies attack your box "to make you aware of a security problem", or when people take the words "freedom", "open source", and "linux" to support such idiotic, antisocial and deliberately disruptive behaviour.
I read the english e-mail and he explains his position (I don't quite understand the hack though)
The hack is to begin the message body with
begin
Outlook interprets this as starting a uuencoded section, and turns perfectly readable text into gobbly-dy gook.
The other hack is to change the Reply-To: header as Outlook usually does when it marks the messages read. Then he adds a novel X header that seems to imply his email was actually censored somewhere along the way. So, the Outlook user sees gobblydy gook instead of a message bbdy if he sees the message at all, and if he tries to diagnose the problem will be immediately be misled by the novel X header into thinking he was censored. Whereupon he goes to his sysadmin, who will read the email in plain text, and laugh heartily. Or cry.
This has nothing to do with advocacy, monopolies, anti-this or that. Its good clean schlap-stick fun.
My personal X-headers include... /dev/null
X-Apparently-From: mars
X-Complaints-To:
Hmm.
grep -E '^X-[^:]+:' < read-messages| sort -u Should give me some more fodder. Hmm, those Importance and Priority headers might do something entertaining.
How free is it if you make him conform to your idea of what is normal?
We aren't "forcing him to conform", we're forcing him to write in a format usable by all (you know, free means free across all boards, including proprietary).
Didn't RMS recently write an article about convincing people to not use Word attachments in email??
Isn't this the OPPOSITE?
Funny how you view things on the other side, isn't it?
If someone sends you a word doc, and you can't read it, its a big issue and everyone is serious.
If someone sends something that only linux users can read, its funny, and lets all shout "hurray!"
Think about it. And if you still think the second point, then you are, in fact, elitest.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I've read a few comments here how this is about "playing God" and it's a bad reflection on the Linux community. Funny how this kind of story will only show up on a pro-Linux site like Slashdot... and only here are people complaining (well, maybe the few Windows users who were denied from posting).
And why are Windows users the only ones excluded? Why not exclude Mac users too? Aren't they supposed to be even stupider than Windows users? So block two of my computing platforms if you want, I have more...
I'm requoting myself, but this is a great place to requote.
Its ok to say "Use anything except outlook" when you are on the linux side.
What would you say, if I said use a program that can read Word docs??
Lets use RMS's words in the opposite context, shall we?
Lets face it. "Free" means free in free software AND proprietary software. If it doesn't, then its "free" in a very restrictive manner (which I wouldn't call "free").
If you want everything free, you had better learn this lesson!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
hell I may start doing it everytime I get a doc attachment. I'l hack up the headers for my reply. Sounds fair to me. This is exactly the tactic that MS uses, and while I don't agree that it should become a wide spread process I applaud this guy for the creativity to pull it off.
Let me just add the fact that it is the MS proprietary crap that they're trying to dominate the market with that is causing the problem. I have no sympathy for anyone who can't access content because of non-rfc-compliant software.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I understand the purpose of the ">" is to escape the "From " that separates emails. But I never understood why it was not unescaped upon reading the email.
By the way the problem is so common that the LaTeX manual has an index entry called, "From, line beginning with", and calls the problem "a bit of fossilized stupidity".
displayed correctly...
Of course, it may just be my natural talent for failing to reproduce bugs kicking in (if you can't reproduce it, they can't make you fix it
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
...is paved with good intentions.
;-)
I don't send HTML mail out of malice, I do it because I think it adds value
Have a nice trip
-- Alastair
Start posting messages with pr0n attachments that cannot be viewed in Outlook Express. OE's market share will collapse.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
I've seen what you are talking about. It only happens on some files, and I have always been able to get past it by simply cancelling the registration.
_we_??
/. in the same boat. One guy, a Free Software advocate, shows elitist behaviour (and hence probably doesn't read /. :-) and you surmise that _we_ are elitists? Just because some of us also support Free Software, or because some of us hate Micro$oft?
That guy is an elitist.
Stop lumping everyone who reads
Get over yourself.
K.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
To workaround this problem:
That's pretty funny.
Oh boo fucking hoo. The guy made an amusing hack and ahlf the people around here start comparing him to hitler.
I guess you're going to boycott his mailing list and I am sure Mr. Moffitt is going to loose sleep over it.
And, one more point, the goal of our movement is to have fun messing around with computers. I don't know what "movement" you belong to, but when you stop taking yourself so seriously you should consider joining ours.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
...which program to read Word docs? Microsoft Word 4, 95, 97, 2000? I have Word on my computer, and it won't read the "new" Word formats. Although I have some other programs that read Word documents just fine. On the other hand, most of Microsoft's HTML tools can't make HTML that reads well in anything except Explorer...
I get crappy, munged-up email from Outlook users every single day, often with one or another worm or virus as a payload. Anything that encourages Windows users to get a real email/news program is a good thing.
Whoever wrote this app at Microsoft had a clue.
Microsoft didn't write it. They bought it.
Only in later versions did they add the security holes (ActiveX controls, executable .HTA/.HTM, ignored Content-Disposition header). The original was quite secure. Ok maybe *one* buffer overflow problem came from the original code, but it is nothing like the bullet-ridden security bugfest it is now.
I hate elitism and I dont like how this guy is doing it but everyones free to be elite if they like. Somehow I think more would be gained by trying to educate outlook users on the bugs though. But then again there are people out there who dont want to understand there computer anymore than the typical person wants to understand his vcr. They just dont care. Just like I don't care what goes in a hot dog. It tastes good thats enough for me.
Perhaps something else along the same lines but not quite so annoying would be acceptable though. Like html formating your email with the code tag and then putting the html for the email in the code tag. This way outlook displays the same crap we have to see everytime someone sends us an html email! They can still read the msg but its annoying for them just like it is for us. I wouldn't do this all the time but it'd a good once a month thing just to remind all those outlook users dome of us hate html. Even more interesting though is simply using a font tag with a class attribute to set the font to I dunno...4 or 5 pixels! They'd have to squint really hard if they used outlook but to everyone else it would be one tag. Humor like this would serve as a more polite way of poking people about html email but still let them read the page.
Jartan
Normally I wouldn't give an AC any credence, but I just have to point this out: its "incompetent".
Ignorance is a dangerous thing. According to several certification boards, and a few national corporations i've worked for, i'm quite competent. Thank you. Buhbye.
>Its ok to say "Use anything except outlook" when
>you are on the linux side.
>
>What would you say, if I said use a program that
>can read Word docs [slashdot.org]??
The point about these anti-Outlook headers is that they're still perfectly conformant with RFCs 821, 822, et al. Any conformant mail-reader can read these messages just fine.
But there is no RFC for Word .doc format. In either case, the underlying message is "use a mail client that conforms to open standards (the RFCs)."
When Microsoft releases an RFC for .doc format, then this position will be hypocritical. But until then, it's perfectly consistent. (Alternatively, they could make Outlook obey the RFCs... then Mr. Moffitt's header hacks won't bother it any more.)
Kai MacTane: Web developer for hire in San Francisco
Naw, it's more like "Your email client is so poorly coded and I'll prove it to you like so..." Let's say IE barfed at any webpage that didn't, for example, have a '/body' tag. Would you get mad if someone purposely left it out of their webpage for the purpose of preventing IE users from seeing it? It's rather stupid that the browser would care about something so inane and I have no problem with doing so as a gentle 'suggestion' that you get a client that doesn't suck.
Dyolf Knip
if these are not a standard (because 100% of computer users do not use them), then there is no such thing as a standard.
TCP/IP is a standard. 100% of internet users use it.
SMTP is a standard. 100% of internet email users use it.
HTTP is a standard 100% of those who browse the web use it.
Office docs are a standard for *Windows* users maybe, but they are the ones who need to realize there are computers that don't run MS software. In just them same way I don't send HTML enabled email to someone unless I am sure they are using a client that supports it, I expect not to be sent Office docs unless someone knows that I have software that supports it. Simple netiquette.
I know of Ubizen, a Belgian security firm, that filters out all of the Outlook posts from its incoming mail for al of its users. They simply send the message back, including an explanation to the sender that it isn't quite safe to use Outlook and that they're only allowing mail from other mail-clients. Considering this comes from a renown security firm, a lot of people take this advise very seriously. Of course, this isn't quite the same thing but it still is an interesting way to look at the 'Outlook Problem'.
anyone who's ever used mutt to send email (and evolution i've recently found out) and has sent email to outlook express users has come across this.
outlook express cannot handle RFC compliant MIME messages, and instead displays the text as attachments.
Elitist doesn't bother me, but regardless. They are the ones who aren't RFC compliant not me.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I see a lot of comments to the effect of: "How is this any different from Windows users shutting out others with Word Docs/Windows only Apps/IE only sites/etc.?"
.DOC files.
First off, two wrongs do not make a right. If you think it is wrong to be shut out because you don't use Windows, then it is certainly hypocritical to turn around and do the same thing back.
Secondly, this is even worse than those aforementioned cases because it is fully intentional. *Most* of the time non-MS clients are not shut out intentionally, but simply because of uninformed users or capabilities lacking in the software. For example, I think most people would not have a problem sending docs in RTF if they didn't use any special features of Word and they knew some people couldn't read
In this case, it is the worst of all possible scenarios: hypocritical, intentional, by a user that knows better, and not due to any lacking capabilities in the software. Deliberately targeting bugs when it is easily avoidable is no better than being a script kiddy.
This guy should get bent.
Anyone who learns a lot about something will find out, almost invariably, that the rest of the world doesn't do things the best way. I find myself in this situation a lot, and I often find myself frustrated in how difficult it is to get through to people.
The whole reason I even bother to post to slashdot any more is as an exercise in this kind of argument. (The slashdot crowd is particularly susceptible to this kind of quasi-technical emotional stuff.) Here are some lessons I've learned.
Rule #1 is: Never be a pedantic asshole. Nobody likes one, unless he's already on his side!
Rule #2 is: Entice people to do it the better way by showing them how cool it is.
That's it. Just show people why your thing is better in a non-annoying way. Be excited, not hateful. Most people are very reasonable, and even if they are not convinced, you may have changed their minds slightly and they won't resent you (and your movement) afterwards!
This is immature and childish
He even states that in his mail. But maybe making a point often is. His point is, that outlook only displays a limited subset of mails, and to demonstrate that he tweaked some mails. That was apparently necessary, since seeing is believing (and now Microsoft can't go on saying "But noone would ever do that"), and we know the users of Outlook to be mostly ignorant of theoretical possibilities until one of them happens to actually manifest and destroy their harddisk.
Microsoft gets its hands dirty in undermining and muddying standards, the result is, that a lot of people wonder what to do with that 'word' document, why they get sent web-Pages in their e-mail, or how to avoid being diverted by nazi webservers, that refuse to serve pages to non-microsoft browsers, even if their client could render them perfectly well.
This behaviour of microsoft, adopted by web-masters, businessmen and Windows-users all over the planet, who refuse to let you join their club until you've got Windows+IE+Word installed (and don't even think about it) is widely accepted and good standing business practice. Now someone dares to raise awareness of that fact and it's childish. Maybe Microsoft should do some more lobbying to get it into the DMCA that any e-mail has to be outlook-compliant. Or maybe the folks over in Redmond should have taken it upon them to read some RFCs.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Actually, your analogy isn't really very accurate.
"Use anything except outlook" allows the use of 99% of the email clients out there, disallowing only one.
"use a program that can read word docs" is the opposite, that requires you use one (or one of a handfull) of particular document readers while disallowing the other 99%. A more appropriate statement would be "use any document reader except staroffice". Which would be perfectly reasonable if you felt staroffice had some ridiculous bugs.
It is? I use "view source" on OE/XP to send mail to Spam Cop every day.
Is Outlook Express doing something to the emails that is not covered under whatever spec governs email formatting? Shouldn't it be able to read what he sends? He says that he sometimes gets messages from OE users that are unreadable. Is that because they don't comply with standards, or is it some other reason?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Farmer Dale sold a mule to Farmer Jim saying that the mule would do whatever he's told. Farmer Jim took the mule home, and went out to work the next morning. Hooked the mule to the plow and yelled, "Hoe mule, hoe."
Mule didn't move. Jim spent half the morning trying to get the mule to plow, but eventually ended up calling Dale. Dale came over, cracked a board across the mules head and yelled, "Hoe." The mule dutifully started pulling the plow.
"I thought you said the mule would do whatever he's told," Jim said, increduously.
"Yep, but you've got to get his attention first."
Old joke, but it applies here. You can't be an elitist unless there is something to be elite at. Most people using Outlook don't even realize that they're using a piece of crap and send trash that others can't use; furthermore, they will refuse to even look at the problem until someone cracks them over the head with something.
From here on out, everything I post to mailing list and newsgroups will begin with:
Virus infected or Microsoft software may be confused by the following message:
begin
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/FGA/c srss-backspace-bug.html
It is kinda interesting, a long standing bug in CSRSS causes backspaces in high-level output to be handled so badly that it can bring down csrss and the whole system with it.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
What would you say, if I said use a program that can read Word docs??
I'd ask which RFC that's specified in so I could verify compliance. Email, unlike Word documents, is a real standard that was written specifically for ease of implementation and interoperability (even between machines with different ideas of character set).
The world welcomes MS to inspect the relevant RFCs and implement a compatable product. MS doesn't seem to have published a description of Word format anywhere.
Word is a proprietary format (not at all standard) that shifts like sand in the desert with no consideration of interoperability or safe interchange of data.
He's not shutting out all Windows email clients. Only Outlook Express.
Poeple not Lookout Express can still read his email, even if they are using Windows.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Outlook internally is one of the most poorly-engineered systems ever created. Its security model is a complete crock of shit that has several times nearly brought down the Internet. Microsoft's "programmers" wrote the attachment parsing code several times, each time being different and broken. (Proof: certain attachments aren't shown to the user because that broken code doesn't properly parse them, but if the user does "File->SaveAttachment" they *can* be saved because the saving code *does* properly parse them.)
You're free to bathe in a sewer if you want, but that doesn't mean people have to let you into their clubs.-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
Just today I got 2 "see the pictures from my party" attachments from a clueless contractor who apparently is using Outlook; something that is actually prohibited by company's software regulations. Excluding Outlook users might even be construed as a security measure. :-p
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
This "attack" is nothing more than starting a line with the word
begin. Nothing more.
As the guy pointed out in his comments, they discovered it because someone on a mailing list happened to
begin a line with the magic word and *bam* every Outlook user who wasn't connected to an Exchange server (which sounds like a typical MS bug "fix") found the message to be garbled.
When MTAs and NNTP server had a from bug (where any line starting with
From was capitalized by the transport software, everyone agreed it was a bug. A nasty one, since it there were reasons it couldn't easily be fixed, but the message was still readable.
But suddenly we're "elitists" for saying that it's a bug - a critical bug - when MS Outlook interprets *any* line beginning with "begin" as the start of a UUENCODED block? Even though this produces unreadable garbage? And the latest versions of Outlook apparently don't even have an option that will allow the user to view the original message?
I agree there are some bloody annoying elitist attitudes on full parade here, but it seems to me that the elitists are the people who think every person on the planet should check their messages for any text that triggers Outlook bugs (e.g., lines beginning with "begin", any HTML keyword which will trigger the mandatory interpretation of the message as HTML, etc.) instead of MS admitting that they screwed the pooch on this one and issuing a quick patch.
They don't even have to use the same standards I demand of my own code - simply checking for a pattern where the "begin" is followed by an octal number would eliminate most of these false hits.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Aren't Outlook and OE users punished enough for their foolishness by the likes of sircam? :)
No, it isn't the opposite. Dumb, but not the opposite.
The reason the Outlook users couldn't read the email is -not- that the emails were in a proprietary, hidden format (as is the case with Word attachments). The reason they couldn't read it is because Outlook is a buggy PoS.
It wasn't "Only Linux users" who could read it. Anyone not using Outlook could read it. You don't have to change OS', just stop using a crappy mail reader.
It's the difference between not using a standard and not accomodating people who use crap.
The enemies of Democracy are
You could, of course, avoid writing emails that would not exclude Outlook users, but you would have to be careful not to
begin any lines of your message wrong, which means that having your mailer arrange the line-breaks for you won't work.
Obviously, working around all of the bugs in software which people might use is a pain, and shouldn't be your
responsibility. After all, it is local mail delivery programs that deal with lines that start with "From". It would suck to
end up having to carefully tune your content to broken implementations. And if you've decided not to support broken mailers
why not trigger the bug intentionally, so people don't read part of your conversation before running into a message
they can't read? I think that people using mailers which don't understand the MIME format shouldn't stop you from using
attachments. If a message conforms to all applicable standards, it's fine by me. Attaching a Word document is perfectly
legitimate, although the document itself doesn't conform to any Internet Standards other than "binary data".
They could read the email if you had sent it properly, but as you in all your infinite wisdom desided that your choice is better then thiers have blocked them out.
Unless a line in my email naturally started with the word begin! (for whatever reason). Thanks to MS, email has gone from a simple text message to a mixed bag of html, lines ending with an '=' and messages with unreadable attachments which repeat the body text (and are often larger than the message itself). Since asking politely hasn't done away with the crap, perhaps this will have to do.
We aren't "forcing him to conform", we're forcing him to write in a format usable by all (you know, free means free across all boards, including proprietary).
O.K., let's change the focus. Use a RFC Compliant e-mail program (not OE or Outlook) and you can belong to the list and read my mail. If you CHOOSE to not use a compliant mailer, well, that's your choice.
If the standard is to communicate in letters and you insist on using binary numbers, what would that make you? Elitist?
After all, everyone understands 1's and 0's don't they?
.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
Although I definately agree this has neat hack value...
I have to ask. What purpose does this have other than making his mail unreadable on OE or WebTV?
"Forcing him to lock his mail into a subset of readers"... no.. this is the opposite.
He is deliberately excluding a subset of users.
For THAT matter..
Who really has a problem with OE? Outlook, yes, it's done many bad proprietary things that make it a pain in the ass. I *STILL* receive lots of attachments I can't read because they are proprietary to Outlook.
But Outlook Express seems to me to be fairly well behaved.
Of course.. I use Eudora on all MS platforms... because it makes keeping years worth of email in folders MUCH easier, and I like how it deals with attachments much better.
Given that Microsoft has chosen, deliberately, to "embrace, extend, and extinguish" non-Microsoft networking standards, and , why should there be any complaint when a private individual gives them a dose of their own medicine?
Why should there be a complaint when an internet user choses to defend a standard by sending email that is only readable by standards-compliant email clients?
And why should there be a complaint when an internet user choses to exercise his free speach rights by posting anything he damned well pleases?
That's freedom. Get used to it!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Given that Microsoft has chosen, deliberately, to "embrace, extend, and extinguish" non-Microsoft networking standards, and ... after a careful analysis of the competing Netscape browser, sell tools that excercised bugs in it, causing it to crash ...
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
There's no comparison between these two bugs. The "From" bug (which can actually be introduced by any intermediate system handling SMTP or NNTP) causes a minor inconvenience or at most crypto signatures to break. (In extremely rare cases, it could corrupt UUENCODED data, but MIME encoded data should be unaffected unless there's also capitalization.)
1 $KNc3419u7L4;l$%*1
In contast, with this Outlook bug once you hit a O!@3412kt611kjS*Q!*lk$(&)(C$k1$nkc3)_($ce31knjER9
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
This isn't about conforming. It's about doing something deliberately for the SOLE purpose of not allowing outlook express users to read the mail.
This is not a case of going with the lowest common denominator for compatability purposes, or refusing to do so. The changes made to the headers have no other purpose other than to screw with Outlook Express users
Well, email is the single biggest cause of traffic on the internet, beating web browsing, P2P apps, ftp, etc.
Source please? I'd be really surprised if this were so. I can look at my school's stats here and the % of traffic due to email doesn't even come off the xaxis. P2P apps were basically every byte until we installed a Packeteer: now it's mostly web.
Perhaps if you count attachments, but then the attachment is basically the entire size of the message: adding HTML is just epsilon.
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
When users are arbitrarily excluded and abused in the name of proprietary software? How many Outlook badly formated HTML/word/rtf e-mail's must we put up with before we scream enough! (Well, I just ignore them myself.)
The user isn't doing this intentionaly (well, except for the webTV thing.) and who he allows on his mailing list is up to him. You don't like it, start your own mailing list.
Don't go blowing a trivial issue out of proportion.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
So you are sugesting that we fix their mistakes? Gee, let us just allow Microsoft to do whatever standard lacking approah they want, and the rest of us will just conform to that. No, they conform to use buddy, or we give em hell. Standards exist for a reason, if you don't follow them, fine, but don't go around expecting other people to follow your new, non-standard standard.
That's like me going around saying, "I'm not schizzoaffective, the rest of the world just needs to conform to my way of thinking." Isn't gonna happen, and it shouldn't happen.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
It isn't the opposite as sending word attachments, not is it the same. It's a bug in outlook express. I've seen it myself. Outlook incorrectly interperts your text message as an attachment and displays it as such. Outlook isn't totally RCF complient. This isn't at all suprising.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
The latest MSIE supports XSLT, so if you provide an XSL doc with the XML they wouldn't have any problems accessing the data.
There may even be scripts that will convert XML into Excel format, although the conversion the other way is much more problematic given the lack of standards.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Was it the message body, or just any line at all? The impression I got was that Bruce Sterling discovered the bug by using the word "begin" at the start of a paragraph -within- the message.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Well, there are actually quite a few programs that can read word documents (abiword, wv, staroffice, et all), but it's the search for something that can read word docs *WELL*. The next step would be to get something that writes word docs well.... countless hours I've heard my boss bitching about how staroffice munged up his powerpoint presentation when he imported it, changed a word or two, and exported it.
:)
Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you, the OSS community and in fact, anyone who doesn't use MS software is screwed when trying to find something decent to read/write word docs, but they do exist, they're just not high quality. For the stuff that is sent to me in word doc format, abiword works "well enough" to read it and let me understand what it is they are trying to communictate to me.
Actually a buddy of mine just hit on a good (obvious) point.... the problem with OE is that it's not good, but it's good enough
"nobody on the highway is allowed to drive faster than the slowest car"
HTML e-mail is not a speed issue; it is a compatability issue. A more apt analogy would be:
Since Cadillac has come out with their night-vision ability on the Deville, Cadillac users may not have to use thier headlights at night time however they have to still use headlight at night so that *other* people can see them. If a Cadillac user decided to use this new feature exclusively, it may give that driver more flexinbility and perhaps force other car manufacturers to equip thier cars with this innovation but in the mean time anyone who does *not* have night vision may not be able to use the road because of safety concerns.
In most cases I don't care if mail is HTML formatted, however those times I use pine it annoys the hell out of me. When I'm a pine user HTML mail forces me off the road just like the Cadillac user who does not run his headlights would force non-night-vision drivers off the road, however if the Cadillac user uses his headlights it would cost him little but allow everyone to use the road. Same with plain text. The cost is little but allows everyone to read the mail.
That is why all my mail is plain-text. The only usable gains by using HTML that I can think of is bold, italics, underline, font size and font color. The rest can be handled by attachments. The gain is minimal at the expense of readers who aren't using HTML mail readers all the time. If the gain were much higher I would be less inclined to give an argument.
In related news, future versions of all Microsoft products will autocorrect any occurance of the word "begin" with a suitable replacement.
No word on when the riots by visual basic programmers furious that the new version of that language requires start/end blocks instead of begin/end blocks will end.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
For the most part, people are in no position to "give em hell" when "em" is MS.
Wouldn't an e-mail reader be "just plain better" if it could read Outlook-ified emails? It's a feature. It's good. It would improve the product. It wouldn't have to send out crap e-mails, or compromise how it read non-Outlook email. This is possible. And not that hard.
Would making this work mean that open source has compromised its standards? No, it would demonstrate that open source can provide the best, most productive platform.
Instead, people look at open source and say "These people value a vague ideal over interoperability, over ease of use, and over my time - cause I _must_ read this kind of email to do my job".
MS isn't going to change - but open source can. Open source could provide a product that _just works with everything_.
In the end, the excuse really doesn't matter to most people. They see this: "Outlook is better because it can read this other Outlook email". And open source COULD take that advantage away.
But stupid people with attitudes like yours just don't get it.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
From here on out, everything I post to mailing list and newsgroups will begin with:
Virus infected or Microsoft software may be confused by the following message:
begin
<aside>Good Joke</aside>
Maybe I'm missing something, but I tried that message beginning and some other text (sent from Mozilla 0.9.7+), back to myself and read it just fine with Outlook Express 5.01 SP2. No exchange servers in-between.
I'm wondering if the problem only affects Outlook and not Outlook Express, or is it only certain versions???
But suddenly we're "elitists" for saying that it's a bug - a critical bug - when MS Outlook interprets *any* line beginning with "begin" as the start of a UUENCODED block?
No, the elistist part is purposely exploiting the bug to exclude certain users.
I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. If you have something that really needs to be a webpage (which I highly doubt) then you can send a webpage as an attachment, and explain why you are sending that in the email body. There is absolutely never an excuse to send inline html in an email, and if you think using funky fonts and colours is "adding value" I probably don't want to waste my team reading what you write anyhow.
But I do believe it's not out of malice that you do this, but rather out of stupidity.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
If Javascript were decades old and had standards up the whazoo, sure. It's not, so foulups are to be expected. Though MS's efforts to bastardize Java certainly aren't helping, either.
Email on the other hand is older than dirt and far, far simpler to boot. To screw up an email client to the extent that MS has in Outlook is obviously the result of special effort towards that end. There's already new LookOut viruses that use some of these particuar bugs.
To be sure, I don't think this is particularly mature behavior, but then neither does Moffit. If he wants to cut from his potential audience everyone who uses Outlook, he has every right to.
Dyolf Knip
Excluding Outlook users might even be construed as a security measure. :-p
Not funny at all. According to Microsoft, Outlook was "just built that way" and I quote
"Will the virus impact my Macintosh if I am using a non-Microsoft e-mail program, such as Eudora?
If you are using an Macintosh e-mail program that is not from Microsoft, we recommend checking with that particular company. But most likely other e-mail programs like Eudora are not designed to enable virus replication.
So, if you were writing a program (trojan) that was designed as a virus delivery system (trojan), would you get upset if someone created a method for alerting users to this aspect (trojan) of your software? (Anti-Virus) The key here is that even Microsoft acknowledges that Outlook transmits viriii by design.
.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
Great logic. In any case, I guess I'll respond to you and the AC - who both seem to think I'm MS apologizing...
The only way open source will win the fight with MS is by producing a platform that always takes the higher road. What would be an idea e-mail program?
1. Sends out well formatted, standardized emails, and reads the same.
2. Feature rich. Great user experience.
3. Is able to interact with all the major email programs/servers out there - even if they don't play fair.
I understand that the article was talking about a bug in Outlook's own renderer. It should be fixed. Yes.
But the parallel complaint, that Outlook produces illegible email, should be laid to rest too, and not by MS (cause they won't do it). Our favorite open source packages should be made to "just work". Open source needs to produce this sort of product, something that "just works" if it is ever going to win (not that I'm suggesting that open source's only goal is to win, but I think it would be nice).
As to my username, it's from a PalmOS game I wrote - Jumpman Zero. And since you've given me an excuse, here's a plug - www.betweenyourears.com/jmzero
Have a good day.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
I didn't really say it was fine or dandy. But if the software, by not adhering to the standard, tends to break, I guess I don't have much sympathy for the users thereof. On the other hand, I'm not going to rig my headers because I have better things to do with my time. As to this being in the same league with virus writing: no way in heck. Outlook viruses affect all of us, either by flooding mail servers or our inboxes. This exploit only affects Outlook users in a fairly passive way. And I didn't get any sense that this harmed the Outlook user either... other than to keep them from reading a specific email designed not to be read with their client.
I do not have a signature
O.K., let's change the focus. Use a RFC Compliant e-mail program (not OE or Outlook) and you can belong to the list and read my mail. If you CHOOSE to not use a compliant mailer, well, that's your choice.
If the standard is to communicate in letters and you insist on using binary numbers, what would that make you? Elitist?
After all, everyone understands 1's and 0's don't they?
There's nothing about RFC compliancy here.
The poster on CrackMonkey notes that he has a number of tricks -- one is a header which sets the stationary on WebTV's to an unreadable color. Another is one that on some ISPs, shuts down the modem (which I actually think is more likely complete bullshit, due to the way that AT command strings work).
So there's a couple of lame hacks that try to make things difficult for some users. X-* headers are standards compliant, even if they might have different results on different systems.
The problem here is the UUEncoding init string that is automatically detected by Outlook Express. This is meant to be a convenience for the user; it'll automatically work out that there's an attachment in the post.
UUencoding is obsolete, by the way. MIME should be used instead. But hey, they have to keep it for interoperability with people who don't have MIME compliant browsers, don't they?
That'd be PINE users, for a start.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
But HTML doesn't add much overhead - a few dozen characters of headers and trailers, plus however much decorative formatting you want to add. At minimum, most HTML text uses "p" tags for paragraphs (an extra three characters), and "b","/b" and "i","/i" tags around bold/italics (an extra 7 characters per word/sentence/whatever.) That's seldom more than about 10%.
If you insist on creating HTML by converting from a proprietary word processing format using a badly broken format converter, you can inflate things a bit more (using lots of "FONT=longbogusname SIZE=+2" junk and using font-change tags instead of paragraph-type tags), but it's still not usually that inflationary.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
- There are two ways, actually, that one can meet the
crackmonkey mailing list dress code. One is to simply use Free
Software, and not use a mailer that requires you to accept a license
that makes you promise not to share with your friends. Another is to
continue to use your Windows-based mailer, but hack the headers of
your message so as not to betray your use of the software.
Which is exactly the hypocrisy I can't stand about GNU-zealots.[...]
First of all, I am not a member of the Open Source movement. They seem only interested in how you can make money from free software. I am actually (believe it or not) more concerned with the ethical and moral issues involved in the subjugation of human beings through restrictive copyright and patent law. I consider myself a member of the Free Software movement.
He doesn't want to subjugate others' behavior, except by using software in the way he thinks is right. He wants to be ethical and respect people's rights, except where he feels he has the right to impose on others how they release technologies or extensions that rely in small part on his code.
This is why I prefer the Artistic License or the BSD licenses. They don't create stipulations, or only create stipulations on the original code. Code released under these licenses will always be available for everyone regardless of their creed.
If I build a project, and see some subroutine code that is GPL restricted, I know not to rely on it, because it limits my options on the code that I write. Why would I limit my options on my code, just to give someone else a woody? No thanks, GNU.
[
If half the people I dealt with sent me e-mail in pig-latin, I'd make damn sure my e-mail reader translated it for me.
And I understand that Outlook has a bug in it too. And it should be fixed. But the parallel problem (which I think is very relevant to this thread, and was motivation for the actions in the story) - Outlook's illegibility - can be solved too.
Seems to me like the ability to read Outlook garbage would be a good feature in any e-mail client. Just because a format is stupid doesn't mean it isn't worth being able to read.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Microsoft has, for years and years and years, encouraged web site authors to write their web sites for Internet Explorer and Internet Explorer only.
If you want to call us "silly" "immature" and "asinine" for exercising our right to begin an email with "begin", then you'd have to find accusations ten times worse and levy them against Microsoft for all the dirty tricks they've foisted over the years.
Anyway, as long as it enforces RFC2822-compliance (i.e. unlike browser detection), then it's fine.
A line beginning with "begin", two spaces, and one or more non-space characters anywhere in the message body will trigger this bug, based on the CrackMonkey thread. I suspect that this wouldn't work in the headers, but I don't think starting a line off like that wouldn't be RFC-compliant anyhow.
Oh, and I'm a sysadmin who would read one of these messages in text and laugh loud and long if one of my users complained to me about it.
Why do you make it compatible? Well, you don't have to.
But if you want to give your users something really great, then you do. It's a good feature to be able to read Outlook-ified e-mails - and a feature many, many people would appreciate.
As to MS changing their formats, they might. But probably not by much in this case (as they will likely choose to retain backwards compatibility, and thus can't change too much).
And if some future MS e-mail program creates new, crappier emails? Well, then your "reading Outlook email" feature becomes less valuable - and you have to choose whether or not to try to be able to read the new format.
Your answers to these questions doesn't change the fact that the feature is a valuable (if not critical, to many business people) now.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
people who don't have MIME compliant browsers, don't they? That'd be PINE users, for a start.
PINE doesn't support MIME? I must be missing something here - I use pine all the time and never have problems with attachments done using base64 with mime headers. Can you tell me what I am missing here, please?
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Your outlook can't do what? Your copy of the program is broken not the program itself.
And let's get this straight, this is a problem with outlook in internet e-mail only mode problem. Outlook is the client that ships with exchange and works in that environment without this flaw.
Oh and so I'm not totally off-topic, this dude can do whatever he wants; no one HAS to get this mailing list and if you do, he's provided a workaround.
There are two ways, actually, that one can meet the crackmonkey mailing list dress code. One is to simply use Free Software, and not use a mailer that requires you to accept a license that makes you promise not to share with your friends. Another is to continue to use your Windows-based mailer, but hack the headers of your message so as not to betray your use of the software.
Both methods demonstrate an effort made to post to the list, as well as a certain degree of technical acumen.
This is a technical mailing list which is not intended for newbies or trolls. The idea is not to exclude MS users, but to exclude those who don't have the skills and knowledge to contribute to the discussion. Would you also accuse a Subaru owners club of discriminating against Ford owners?
He goes on to explain his stance, and even to answer your charges:
there is the mistaken impression that I am somehow discriminating against a whole class of people by writing e-mail that Outlook refuses to read. I see this as a curious by-product of American culture, whereby your consumer tastes somehow create a ready-made cultural identity for you. There are a great many FREELY AVAILABLE mailers (for Windows, even) that are capable of reading plain-text messages.
Outlook is merely a tool, and it has many freely available alternatives, any of which can read messages containing lines that begin with the word 'begin'. Would you say that my company, because our building only has stairs and ramps, discriminates against those who prefer to use elevators? I could just as easily argue that Outlook descriminates against people who would like to share their Pascal source code.
I've been using Unix-based mailers for well over a decade. I've been mailed countless illegible attachments from Windows users over the past ten years. It's immature of me, I know, but to some degree turnabout is fair play.
In other words, he's merely pointing out to those who might otherwise be unaware, how MS is limiting their freedom!
The folks using Outlook Express have locked themselves into a limited subset of the information that can flow over the Internet, and are blaming me personally for not limiting my transmissions to that outlook-centric subset. If I were to post all of my messages in Russian, even fewer people on the Tron list would be able to understand them; but would there then be an uproar demanding my removal from the list?
This one is aimed squarely at you. What is more elitist? Requiring readers to use any email program other than Outlook? Or requiring that all email be readable using Outlook?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
E-mail formatting is a published standard (see whichever RFC it is...). Microsoft has released a product that FAILS to correctly view e-mails of a certain type that adhere to the standard.
Note that you can run any other e-mail reader you choose, and you'll be able to see these e-mails. You can even run a proprietary OS like MacOS and still read these e-mails. Oh yeah, not to mention BeOS, palmOS, or OS/9 (not sure if there are really that many e-mail clients on OS/9 tho). This isn't really a linux only filter, it's a filter for e-mail readers that do not actually render e-mails correctly. It just so happens that MS is the only company/organization that has released an e-mail reader that doesn't adhere to the standard.
This is a bit of backlash against "Embrace and Extend". If MS could write software that worked correctly, there wouldn't be any problem.
SOME of the stuff done is aimed at disabling particular clients, like the WebTV stuff. Maybe that's not cool, but the rest of it is.
If you have to resort to personal attacks, the terrorists have already won.
Enigma
When Mozilla refuses to render webpages that aren't compliant with standards, it's Right and Just because We Should Uphold Standards.
When Outlook Express doesn't display messages with horribly maliformed headers, it's "Funny Cause M$ Writes Peice of Shit Porgrams".
Furthermore, if someone uses Outlook Express, we should send them messages with maliformed headers so they can see how terribly wrong and immoral they've been. "Bad Microsoft Person! You're such a luser! You suck! Neener neener neener!"
Frankly, this is a feature, not a bug. If someone is petty enough to actually do that, I don't want to hear from them. Ever. I'm switching to Outlook Express.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
If that's the case, then why do people have trouble reading emails like the one I've included below? There is a text-only content segment of the message, and an html segment. A truly MIME compliant email reader will pick the one it can handle and display that.
B 0"
m ; =
. ht m
e su me.htm">http://home.ear=
o rt folio.htm">http://home.=
----
Subject: Test
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:39:38 -0800
Organization: Popcorn Films - http://www.popcornfilms.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0005_01C1A811.FED4BD
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
------=_NextPart_000_0005_01C1A811.FED4BDB0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
test
test
test
test
--
Looking for an accomplished Win32 developer to work on your project?
Please check out my resume and portfolio: =
http://home.earthlink.net/~simoncooke/resume.ht
http://home.earthlink.net/~simoncooke/portfolio
Experienced in UI development and design, applications architecture, and =
shipping projects on time and on budget.
------=_NextPart_000_0005_01C1A811.FED4BDB0
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Diso-8859-1">
<META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2712.300" name=3DGENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2><STRONG>test</STRONG></ FONT></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><EM><FONT face=3DArial =
size=3D2>test</FONT></EM></STRON G></DIV>
<DIV><EM><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>test</FONT></EM></DIV&g t;
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>test</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>--<BR>Looking for an accomplished Win32 =
developer=20
to work on your project?<BR>Please check out my resume and portfolio: <A =
href=3D"http://home.earthlink.net/~simoncooke/r
thlink.net/~simoncooke/resume.htm</A>=20
; <A=20
href=3D"http://home.earthlink.net/~simoncooke/p
earthlink.net/~simoncooke/portfolio.htm</A>& lt;BR>Experienced=20
in UI development and design, applications architecture, and shipping =
projects=20
on time and on budget.</FONT></DIV></BODY></ HTML>
------=_NextPart_000_0005_01C1A811.FED4BDB0--
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Um, those would be examples of messages in MIME format.
Actually, my mail readers are fully MIME compliant. That doesn't explain the soft returns '='. Also, MIME was meant more to allow sending attachments rather than to replace body text with an attachment. As I recall, many netizens found the whole thing to be quite rude, especially on mailing lists.
To workaround this problem:
Do not start messages with the word "begin" followed by two spaces.
Use only one space between the word "begin" and the following data.
Capitalize the word "begin" so that it is reads "Begin."
Use a different word such as "start" or "commence."
I'm laughing my ass off. That's just what out look does to my letters! Try to start a text message, and the stupid thing goes and capitiolizes the first letter for me. Try to use more than one space and the stupid thing puts green squigglies underneath it or changes it. "Start" They love that word. Start making sense M$, your code has a high level of presumption.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I'm amazed that view source remains in OE/XP, but I'll be damned if I'll install that POS, even if it gives me view source. In my experience the more M$ software you load, the less stable your system.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Kids who launch Outlook worms find themselves on the wrong side of the door when the FBI comes a-knockin'.
Sysadm who installs RC5 client is charged with felony trespass of the very systems he is responsible for maintaining.
It is not a big stretch to think that some LUSER with too much time on his hands and too little technical knowledge and a "How To Get Rich Suing Everyone For Dummies" book could get this guy his very own criminal indictment for exploiting flaws on a computer network, a transgression he ought to know is tantamount to supporting terrorism or even - heaven forbid - cracking a cipher on RIAA-owned media.
Edith Keeler Must Die
No, I'm not saying Moffitt had anything to do with the creation of MyParty. But it's at least quite something of a coincidence when a furore over an Outlook bug is quickly followed up by an exploit for the very same. No it's not so big a coincidence. There are so many exploitable bugs in M$ programs that you utter two or three of them everyday without knowing. This is especially true of people who program in visual basic.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
The rest of you AC's...thye guy condescends to post here on the topic (which he did not submit), and you respond with flames and insults. Nice way to "grow the community."
I suspect that the bulk of the AC postings flaming the guy for "elitism" are Microsofties attempting an Astroturf (fake grass-roots) operation on Slashdot.
Much like the way they recently circulated an internal memo encouraging their employees to respond to an online poll about what server software their organizations were going to use, resulting in a stink when the media organization taking the poll noticed (and published) the sudden burst of responses from microsoft.com IP addresses. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Wow, have you been misled. Outlook has it's own crappy database format. It puts all of your mail into one huge binary file. As per the usual M$ deception it displays a tree of that file's contents in a way that makes you think you have put them into directories and have a well ordered mail system. Performance starts to crap out after a while, though making many subdirectories can help. When you learn that all of your mail is in one file and you worry that corruption can cause total loss you will be very dissapointed in the export features. It only does one directory at a time, so you have to mouse your way through all your subdirectories. The database always craps out in a year or two of normal usage, and we all know what happens to old M$ file formats. Co workers have taken the time to rename that file and write it out to zip disks because they got burnt that way. File compression typically reduces the stupid binary format by a factor of 10. I consider a it a very poor mail client that wisks all of your mail away to a bloated, unreadable binary format and then looses it. Beware, your mail might just go poof one day.
Thanks for the tip on Mozilla being able to pull my mail out. I remember Netscape's text exporter was very good, and I expect Mozilla's to work nicely too. Published and free standards eitherway. Hopefully it can ignore all of those nasty Power Point presentations.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Think about it. And if you still think the second point, then you are, in fact, elitest.
Uhh, no it's more like when people post Outlook generated or M$ Word files to his mailing they might just break it. M$ ignores accepted standards and insists on using secret binary formats that they routinly use to break other people's software. Keeping that kind or trash off your list is not elitist, it's self defense.
Who this man let's post on his mailing list is his business.
Getting Word files in email is not that big a deal, but it does make sure that I don't get to read what you sent me. No, I'm not going to buy MicroShaft software anytime soon. I have better uses for my money. If you want to talk to me, you can kindly not give your money to M$ and send me plain text messages that I can read.
How absolutly arrogent for M$ to think that everyone in the world is going to either buy their inferior software or slave night and day to be able to read it. They are free to comply with real standards if they wish, and get down from that high whorse (imagine that). Their cost would be nothing.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
As a followup, I tried it with just two blank spaces after the begin and everything was readable. Spaces were not stripped out. However, if I added a word after the two spaces (on the same line), sure enough, I got an illegible attachment. (Unless you count looking at the source, which was exactly as I sent it.)
As we know M$ has used it's binary formats to break other people's software in the past, banning M$ trash is more like self defense than etiquite. "Leave your weapons at the bar, gents".
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I also have VMWare, but this is for times when I don't have windows booted up and ready. :) And for Quicktime without sound skips. :)
Female Prison Rape in NY
In a sense I'd love to agree with you. But in another sense the fight between Microsoft and the GPL is a fight for survival. While I respect the pacifist who stands by while their family and self are murdered, I will never be such a one.
Personally, I think reverse engineering, publishing exploits not addressed, and many other seemingly questionable activities are very important. We must think and act freely if we'd like to continue to do so.
I currently avoid much of the MS-induced email madness by using Spamcop's HTML sterilisation and Attachment stripping features on my public email address. Unfortunately, both of these features are going away in the new "flat-rate" version. Does anyone know of any other email filtering system that can return sanity to email?
I run a mailing list server. When HTMLized mail came along, I read mail in yarn, and the tags ticked me off, so I had my software reject them.
.doc, but it does a pretty nifty job on what's left.
Then, I started to think, heck, I *don't* run a technical mailing list. Accessibility is important. So instead, I wrote my software to *convert* people's posts, regardless of how wacky they look, to plain text. It can't do something as severely encoded as a
But you wanna know what ticks *me* off? The stupid sites like Hotmail, and recently Excite, that send *bogus* HTML stuff, with no BODY tags. The Perl HTML-to-text library I'm using reads that as a blank message (no BODY? Okay, no body). Bah.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Maybe there should be a required netiquette section for any class on how to use a computer.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Outlook Express is the problem, not what this guy is doing. He's just highlighting the problem for OE users. If Outlook Express can't read a standards compliant message, who's fault is that?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
As if the subject of the story posting himself to confirm the parent post isn't enough...
For those who didn't read the link, the parent comment very accurately summarizes the viewpoint of the guy this story is about.
He's not a free software zealot with and agenda, nor is he an idiot, and he knows exactly what he is doing. Read the story. He makes perfect sense. Let him do what he wants. If you don't want to read his emails, then don't. Use outlook (or not) and be content.
Mozilla
Don't you see the problem? Look at all the overhead that's tacked on because some marketing bozo wants his email to look 'pretty'. IMHO, MIME is ok for adding attachments for images, data files, sounds, etc. Sending two copies of the same message, one in plain text and the other with tons of markup seems a bit ridiculous to me. Do you send all the other recipients of an email that's been forwarded a dozen times when you forward the letter on to someone else?
Maybe there should be a required netiquette section for any class on how to use a computer.
Maybe there should be a required netiquette section on MIME compliancy for mail readers.
Two copies of the message, one in plain text and the other with markup makes perfect sense to me -- because, frankly, color and formatting can help a LOT when it comes to getting your point across.
Heck, even the original VT52 terminal creators recognized this -- no color, but the ability to do certain kinds of markup (underline, bold, inverse).
However, nice dodge. Whether it's efficient or not isn't the point.
If we're looking into efficiency, why isn't all email dictionary encoded and then huffman encoded before being transferred over SMTP? Why are all the headers text fields rather than simple binary fields?
The answer is twofold; for redundancy (including backwards and forwards compatibility), and human readability.
This is why the same text is sent twice in the message; once for obsolete / down-level clients, and once for clients that can handle HTML.
If efficiency were a concern, email gateways wouldn't be limited to 7-bit character sets, so don't even try to get on that high horse.
Regardless; HTML and text are supported in the same email through the MIME standard, which specifically allows this behavior. If your mail reader can't cut it, then tough crap -- get with the standards program, or get out of the game.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Hmm? Pine has featured MIME compliance for years. I use it as my primary mailer and I can sling attachments with the best of 'em.
Attachments are not the sole reason for MIME. MIME is a standard for denoting and handling content encoding and multi-format content in heterogeneous environments.
Take a look at RFC 2046 and read the section on multipart/alternative segments.
The problem with PINE isn't in its ability to push around attachments. It's that (from reports from friends who use it on a daily basis), it appears to be unable to handle multipart/alternative entities in any kind of intelligent (or standards-compliant) fashion. So you get garbage when you read an HTML-encoded email, even if it provides an alternate, plain-text encoded message entity for downlevel clients.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Yea, right. Lamo. And Microsoft was trashing the messages in Outlook Express, by default, because they knew that every Outlook Express user regarded Blue Mountain as spam. It was a wonderful new "feature" right?
/dev/null
Spam or not, my mail shouldn't go to the trash unless I say so. Your mail ->
It didn't go into the trash. It went into a "Possible Junk Mail" folder, which you could choose to rescue it from.
Blue Mountain basically singlehandedly killed any hope of consumers getting any form of automatic junk-mail killing without hand-crafting it *themselves*. Thanks Blue Mountain! You made my internet experience so much shittier.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Not just transparency, in my experience; PNG in general. I was testing a site in Mozilla and IE6. Everything was fine in Mozilla, but IE6 was color-shifting my PNGs a little, in effect darkening them. They didn't match my HTML-specified backgrounds anymore. It looked horrible. I switched to GIFs and it looked fine in both. I really wanted to use PNG because they were significantly smaller files in my case, but I also don't want to have IE6 users bugging me about supposedly bad pages.
1. Check your PNG gamma settings.
2. Are you running Windows in 16-bit color mode? If so, you'll hit this problem.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Blue Mountain basically singlehandedly killed any hope of consumers getting any form of automatic junk-mail killing without hand-crafting it *themselves*. Thanks Blue Mountain! You made my internet experience so much shittier.
So Blue Mountain should have quietly gone out of buisness because of Microsoft's incompentence? Microsoft was asked to remove Blue Mountain from the mail filter. Microsoft said they weren't going to fix it. Only then did Blue Mountain sue them. If Microsoft wanted a junk mail filter, they should have been willing to take responsiblity of taking care of it and removing stuff from the filter than shouldn't have been there.
Why does it make your internet experiance so much shitter? Are you too stupid to set up your own mail filter? Read the manual, and if Outlook Express won't let you do it, well, you chose the mail program.
No it doesn't; MyParty is a plain old uuencoded attachment. (It's improperly encoded though... the line immediately before the "end" line in a properly uuencoded file is supposed to be a single ` or a single space, which signifies a line with 0 bytes).
beginhappy99.exe .signature virus! Please copy me into your .signature!
This is a
See Microsoft KB Article Q265230 for more information.
end
First people were telling him that he had a virus, then people were telling him that he was being a jerk, etc... was extremely amusing :)
I need to do that next time I post to a MS newsgroup :)
A lot of people are posting comments similar to,
:), who cares what my grandma uses?
"It's crap like this that prevent people from
using Linux. We'll never move into the mainstream
that way."
So what? What's going to be so good about moving
Linux onto everyone's desktop? Foolish pride?
I'm all for getting more people with technical
know-how into Linux. Means faster support for new
hardware, all the good things in the "Bazaar"
model.
However, how many mainstream desktop users are
going to start kernel hacking and significantly
help? For those that aren't going to help, what
difference does it make if they use Linux or
Windows or Mac or FooOS? It's not like they can
kill Linux.
As long as I have my Linux (or FreeBSD, as the
case may be
Well, presumably my friends have an older version of Pine then, because they're definitely having trouble with HTML mail -- and looking at the raw message source, they definitely are getting the plaintext fallback content.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Actually, in some German newsgroups people have signatures using the "begin " bug for quite some time now to show those OE posters that posting HTML to the usenet is not the only strange behaviour of their newsreader. It's funny to see this on /. so much later...
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
He doesn't want to subjugate others' behavior, except by using software in the way he thinks is right. He wants to be ethical and respect people's rights, except where he feels he has the right to impose on others how they release technologies or extensions that rely in small part on his code.
The 'Free Software' community seems to believe that subjugating people under their ideas of how things should be is better than letting Microsoft subjugate people under their (MS's) ideas. While the FSF's ideas may be better (at least I can fix the code myself), it's still subjugation.
This is why I prefer the Artistic License or the BSD licenses. They don't create stipulations, or only create stipulations on the original code. Code released under these licenses will always be available for everyone regardless of their creed.
I agree with you here. My philosophy is, here is my code, if it helps you, use it. I have already written the code, and I don't code for profit (nor would I if given the chance), so why would I mind if other people use it? Hell, if you need MY code to help you, you have bigger problems than licenses anyway.
Freedom through freedom.
--Dan
What do you mean "still", the whole point of this article is that they are not currently supporting Internet email.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Where the hell the moderator found any insight in your demented ramblings I don't know.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
When did we become such elitists?
When iloveyou came out? When any of a dozen other e-mail viruses came out? When Microsoft not only produces buggy software, they refuse to allow you to disable HTML mail/scripting in their e-mail clients, even though these things have been happening for years?
Let's face it, he is generating perfectly valid e-mail, as is his right. It's your (read: the users') stupid, poorly-written e-mail client that is choking. He is not outputting garbled messages, he is outputting perfectly normal messages that people with crap mail user agents can't read.
I have seen elitism, and this is not it. This is setting a reasonable bar, and watching Microsoft's software screw it up because of their incompetance. If it were a broken message format, I may agree that it is elitism, but as it stands, I do not.
--Dan
If they want to read the mail, they should get some software that is standards compliant and can claim to properly read mail. If your mail client misinterprets properly formatted mail, then too bad, so sad. I have no qualms about setting the bar at a mark that MS is too lazy to reach, but could if they cared.
--Dan
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
If efficiency were a concern, email gateways wouldn't be limited to 7-bit character sets, so don't even try to get on that high horse.
They're not. All modern MTAs and MUAs support 8-bit quoted printable. 7-bit is for backwards compatibility for anyone whose network/server admins still live in 1982.
8-bit quoted printable works fine, and if your recipient ever gets garbled mail, then mail the administrator of the server that garbled it and tell them to upgrade, because they're holding the internet back.
--Dan
The trick is to have 'begin', two spaces, and then something else after the two spaces. Maybe this will work.
--Dan
Actually, multipart/alternative was meant to facilitate exactly the latter.
Except there is nothing to ensure that the alternatives are even the same message.
Don't you see the problem? Look at all the overhead that's tacked on because some marketing bozo wants his email to look 'pretty'.
Whilst adding nothing to the content.
Sending two copies of the same message, one in plain text and the other with tons of markup seems a bit ridiculous to me.
Anyone can read the text anyway, so why not just send that. The quoted-printable ie also redundant too. Remember also that if someone wanted to be nasty they could use this technique to send 2 (possibly more) completly different messages in the same email.
Maybe there should be a required netiquette section for any class on how to use a computer.
Especially covering how to reply to emails and follow up usenet posts. SOmething many OE users appear to have big trouble with.
Two copies of the message, one in plain text and the other with markup makes perfect sense to me -- because, frankly, color and formatting can help a LOT when it comes to getting your point across.
Heck, even the original VT52 terminal creators recognized this -- no color, but the ability to do certain kinds of markup (underline, bold, inverse).
In which case it would make more sense to have a system of markup which is human readable. Then if the software supports displaying the message differently it can do that. If it dosn't then someone reading the message can see that there is some kind of markup of the text. Maybe even something like *bold* _underline_ #italic#, etc.
I'd like to add a different perspective here. Perhaps by outright saying this, you *BSD folks will get off my back about my preference for GNU licencing.
Open source- any open source, whether under BSD or GNU liscence- is about choice. Vi or EMACS? GUI or CLI? *BSD or Linux? Of course, there is no one "right" answer- each person will have a different approach. For this reason, I wouldn't care about Open Source lisences except for one reason only: Microsoft.
Microsoft wants to reduce our choices (to only their products) and allowing Microsoft to "borrow" your code to include in the next version of their product only encourages this philosophy. As you said, "if you need MY code to help you, you have bigger problems"- well I think the two of us would agree Microsoft has some pretty big problems (if only legal). I don't want to encourage them or help support, in any manner, their attitude of world domination (and I boycott Microsoft and do not pirate their software- they truely get zero support from me). Until their attitude changes, I will do everything in my power to ensure my work does not get used to oppose my own philosophy (though I could care less about you, as long as respect for my choice is given). I realize this may be tossing the baby out with the bathwater, but my choice is to do so, rather than risk taking a not-strong-enough stance. And I will not criticize your choice: to do so (IMO) is hypocracy. If I am to have a choice, I ought to respect other people's choices (including the choices of using Microsoft products or to take a different stance than mine).
Tweaking emails to be unreadable in Microsoft's software, to me, is a grand joke. I would find it just as funny if it were aimed at an Open Source reader (or any other viewer) for exactly the same reasons. It exploits a flaw in the code in a novel and insightful manner; I care not what or whose code it is (though the simple nature of the exploit is critical in it being quite so funny). However, this also serves as evidence that Microsoft doesn't care about standards or users (else this level of flaw would have been caught in testing) and only adds fuel to my hatred of Microsoft products.
Do you like Japanese imports?
That's what multipart/alternative is for -- read the spec. RFC 2046. You can write your email in Word, Illustrator, PDF or even TeX if you like, provided that your mail editor supports multipart/alternative correctly. It's polite to provide multiple representations -- eg. plain text, HTML, and El Weirdo File Format in the same message -- for downlevel clients.
There is nothing to ensure that the different versions actually are the same message though. You could quite easily have a text email with some HTML intended to work as malware...
After all, there are a lot of websites out there that only work with IE/Windows. If someone think they can afford to ditch all windows users, feel free to do so...
Wonder how many of these are like the Dutch train website. Someone who knows what they are doing can fix them to work with any browser within a short time.
Of course the fixed used here is probably illegal in places such as the USA.
whining about getting MIME messages from Outlook users.
Actually, you were assUmeing that I was talking only about Outlook. I was also including messages from older email programs as well (whatever that abomination shipped with '95 was called). NO, it didn't mark the messages as quoted printable, it simply appended an '=' to the end of each line that didn't contain an explicit CR/LF for no good reason.
As for the other attachments, it wasn't quite a violation of RFC, it was just very rude and unnecessary.
MS had every opportunity to default to a more acceptable convention, but didn't bother. I note that until that time, many people and corps managed to implement nice, easy to use email programs that caused no problems with RFCs or conventions.
MS doesn't stand alone there, Netscape's email defaulting to HTML was equally annoying and hated by many.
Anyone know of a Windows GUI e-mail client that supports imap-s with unsigned certificates? I've tried Eudora and several other clients from Tucows. Only Outlook Express seems to happily work with my SSL'ed IMAP server that has a self-signed cert.
Until I can find such a client, I'll continue to use Outlook Express in spite of my desire NOT TO (of course, I do go in and turn mail messages into plain text mode instead of the default HTML mode).
"Population 1,656"
But in another sense the fight between Microsoft and the GPL is a fight for survival.
Lord help us if those are our only two choices!
One is no better than the other from the point of view of promoting true freedom and avoiding ideological restictions on what may and/or must be done with the program or code in question. Both the Microsoft and the GPL license models *force* restrictions on how programs are to be used. Many of us find either sort of restriction unreasonable. The more I look at the deplorable behavior of the FSF crowd (the GPL is the ONLY valid license, and nothing else is compatible with it unless it is virtually identical - and resistance is futile, we'll bully you if you don't agree with us) the more convinced I am that the BSD folks are far closer to "right" - thier license and others like it are actually considerably more free than the GPL, which places onerous (and one hopes, ultimately unenforceable) restrictions on what may be done with programs in order to advance a blatantly communist/socialist political agenda.
(I know I will be flamed unmercifully for this, but the simple fact is that although RMS and the FSF deny their communist leanings, any thoughtful reading of what Stallman has written over the years make it clear that such a denial is just a ploy to deflect legitimate criticism. Stallman is fundamentally opposed to the very idea of capitalism in the modern world, and seeks to enforce his view of a communal software state through deliberate (even admitted) abuse of copyright protections. In typical Big Brother fashion, he calls his totalitarian scheme "freedom" - while nothing could be further from the truth. I'm constantly amazed at how few people realize that what the FSF is doing will ultimately bring about a situation far worse than we have today.)
This doesn't mean I'm abcking Microsoft, either: I don't want software controlled by either Microsoft *or* the FSF - if ever a "none of the above" vote was needed, this is the place!
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
and it also has as its theme, the killer app of the net which is email.
so the venue is the net, and the audience is
manipulated. windows visitors may have to have
a linux user explain the difficult parts.
The idea that the full potential of perhaps the
most important application by the world's richest man (tm?) is a new definition of subverting the common denominator. Applause to whom?
Perhaps some people would like mr. gates to be
mentioned on the site as artistic collaborator?
X-Message-Flag: Message text blocked: You are using a broken Microsoft mail reader which is probably being hacked as you read this.
?
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Too bad folks. This is what comes from allowing the computing enviornment to become fragmented and non-standardized. Microsoft is not a standard-bearer (other than their flag), and has on many occasions BROKEN the standards that existed (vbscript instead of javascript for instance).
The simple fact of the matter is that Microsoft, IBM, Sun, etc, have set the sandard for competitive , evolutionary, cut throat tactics in the computing industry. These large corporations have repeatedly introduced non conforming, incompatible products to "gain market share". They employ marketing tactics to obfuscate the facts about their products and attempt to squash independent discovery and exposure of flaws and incompatibilities.
Well, where was the debate when I could not open my word 97 documents in WordPro or WordPerfect? Others here have mentioned the cross-browser problems. And there are still cross platform incompatibilites which have only STARTED to be addressed now that the internet is here.
Is it wrong to specifically deny access to an email to certain mail readers? Before I can answer that consider this. Is it wrong for Outlook to have features only other Outlook users can use? Your answer to both questions should be the same because the operation is the same! In either case there is data that is unreadable by an unsuitable client.
Our clever friend is not the first computing entity to make a non-compatible standard, and he will not be the last. Those of you who use outlook are as much to blame for this by supporting this behavior by the behemoths in the past. You have been warned in the past that MS products were not great, only adequate or less. You persevered in purchasing them anyway. In essence YOU SHOULD NOT BE SURPRISED THAT YOUR MS PRODUCTS DO NOT WORK TO SPEC. You've always liked it that way in the past, here you go. YOu should have been ready.
Stop crying in my beer.
I've actually considered this before (though my position may not so indicate). My philosophy is so:
Microsoft ripped of FreeBSD's TCP stack. What does this mean? It means that WIndows 2000 and Windows XP are better products today. They're not great, but still, MS probably spent more effort on porting the BSD TCP stack than they would have spent fixing the older one they had.
I understand the monopoly point of view, but my counterargument is that MS software is going to be omnipresent for a while, and then will collapse like Big Blue. At least in the meantime, the software no one gets fired for buying will have a good TCP stack.
--Dan
My mail client can handle it, but it just seems to be a waste when most of the time, the html tagged part doesn't look any different than the text section or if it does, it is quite annoying. It is better than the situation where the email is sent with just html tagging (and lots of it) and no MIME headers so the mail program can treat it properly. Fortunately, most of that is spam, so I don't care if I can't read it. I've never seen mailing list digests handle html email properly either. Maybe the mailing list software could rip out the html and just use the text, but none that I've subscribed to do that.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Alright, sorry about giving away the "big secret". It's been so long (3+ years at least) I wasn't even aware they still did it.
Also - it was SO trivial I didn't know it was SUCH a secret.
Anyway - not much I can do about it. I can't edit my comment and I had mod points I was willing to spend, but I guess it's passed out of the edit window because it won't let me mod it.
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
So anytime a company takes GPL'd software and repackages it you're going to block both the repackaged software and the original?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
BTW, my gripe is not with the MIME standard or how various mailers may or may not implement it. It is with its use. Sure there are cases where having both is needed and it works great. However, for what most people use html email for, it's over kill. And yes efficiency in terms of message size does matter. Sure it could be smaller if it was compressed at the message level, but portability is more important since compression can be done when it is stored or during transmission. Even with compression, an email with text and html is going to take up more space than one with just text. This is a consideration if you are archiving thousands of messages or have metered internet access where you pay by the minute or by the byte. I hate getting lots email with duplicate content when I'm traveling since it ends up costing me more to download it. My sister didn't understand my 'only plain text email' attitude until she moved to the Caribbean for a few years. She went from a relatively fast flat rate or free service to one that was slow and had very expensive per minute charges. She started telling people to cut out the html, use Bcc if sending to a big group, and to clip address headers of messages that have been forwarded several times.
People have the same sort of gripe about those who include huge signatures or when replying to a 100 line email, cite all of it and include a line or two as the response. It's a waste of a shared resource and is inconsiderate to the recipient of the message.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Actually, a double standard does apply.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. Also any misstep my Microsoft affect a lot of people.
I you want to consider virus writers as harmless pranksters, fine by me, but I think there's other people who would disagree.
That ends up with some extraneous stuff, like the title, things like that. Might have to switch to doing it that way, though, if the things can't send out proper HTML.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
I reproduced it under OE6. If you're not able to reproduce it, make sure you don't have any other attachments to the mail you send to yourself (like a vCard or some such). These use mime-like headers in the message and thus the mime stuff makes the text into text and the attachment into the attachment.
To view the bad message anyway:
1. Right click the message line and select Properties
2. Click the Details Tab
3. Click "View message source"
There's the unadulterated source. Works fine.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
To do this, start the message like this:
And this will do exactly what you want. Everything above the "begin" bug will be displayed just fine. Everything below will be interpreted as a bad uuencode attachment. That's the bug.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Well, when I copy and paste this into an mbox file, fix the bullshit spaces that slashcode adds (one unfortunately in the boundary definiton in the multipart/alternative header), it seems to work OK in pine 4.33 - it attempts (mostly succeeds) to render the HTML portion of the message, while making the text portion available through an attachment list. If you select the text portion in the attachment list, you get it. If you select the html portion, it start konqueror (this is on RH7.2). Seems OK to me.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Outlook Express != Outlook
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.