Slashdot Mirror
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.
...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!
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
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.
What was our reaction to MS disabling access to the MSN sites?
Blazing anger.
And this is different exactly how?
When a Linux person does it, it's 'funny' (+1).
This is immature and childish.
True that.
I hope he comes to his senses and refrains from this kind of petty vendettas.
When people start ignoring his email (message->block sender), maybe then he'll get the idea: being a jackass to other people might be funny for roughly two seconds, but no longer than that.
[o]_O
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
As he pointed out, Outlook users send people unreadable, non-standard attachments all the time. What's the difference? Why do non-Outlook users always have to be the ones to conform to what Outlook users do?
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
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.
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.
You are confusing two different issues. One is the auto-killfile that I perform on myself, not allowing anyone using outlook to read my mails. The second is the "dress code" for posting to a mailing list I run. They're two different efforts.
The first says "I don't care if windows users can't read my mail"
The second says "I don't want windows users posting to my mailing list"
There is a distinction.
--
I noticed
It's getting about time to leave everywhere
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$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
MS's access restriction seemed to be Microsoft's testing just how far it could go with it's power - how many non-IE users will complain if we do this?
This guy's action seems to be his attempt to fight back, and educate. Do you use Outlook? if not, how many illegible attachments and other garbage have you gotten from people who _do_? I'd consider this to be revenge/payback to the Outlook-using world, and not foolish at all - people need to see what is wrong with Outlook and this helps point it out - anyone on this list will probably be technical enough to get why he's doing this anyway, and be understanding (it's a bug in Outlook, after all...)
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
and
I probably don't agree with what he is doing, but I can see that it is in some ways a good idea to punish people whose email programs do not follow the RFC's, because that may be the only way to get people to put pressure on the vendors to provide correct software.
Remember, part of MS strategy is to make life difficult for people who don't use MS software and want to interact with those who do. Selling clients that don't follow the RFC's is just a part of this. Maybe this will make a few users complain to microsoft that they can't read a properly formated email using their MS email clients and force MS to change its practices.
Whatever you think of his politics I love the idea of a snooty doorman looking at the M$ 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?!?
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
Mozilla's mail client, for one.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Even from 9x you're graced with telnet and cut and paste.
telnet mail.domain.com 25
HELO me.domain.com
MAIL FROM: user@domain.com
RCPT TO: recipient@otherdomain.com
DATA
Date:
Subject:
From:
Hi! This is my message body.
.
There's that modicum of techical acumen he was talking about. Not that this guy isn't an arrogant cock.
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 noticed
It's getting about time to leave everywhere
And this is different exactly how?
He is not a monopoly. Microsoft is. What he did (if intentional) was not illegal. What Microsoft did (if intentional) is.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
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.
What was our reaction to MS disabling access to the MSN sites?
I don't know about yours, bucko, but I couldn't give a damn. If MSN has anything interesting to say (unlikely), odds are that somebody else will be saying it.
And this is different exactly how?
Microsoft's move was part of an effort to coerce lock-in to a non-standards-compliant protocol. This locks out non-standards-compliant clients. Totally opposite.
This is immature and childish.
Not at all. It makes the point very clearly. If more people did it, more users would realize just how broken MS software is.
-- Alastair
I think Microsoft has the exact same intent, and they are quite serious about implementing it.
I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress -J Adams
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
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
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.
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 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
You are confusing two different issues. One is the auto-killfile that I perform on myself, not allowing anyone using outlook to read my mails. The second is the "dress code" for posting to a mailing list I run. They're two different efforts.
The first says "I don't care if windows users can't read my mail"
The second says "I don't want windows users posting to my mailing list"
There is a distinction.
You are correct, but they have one thing in common. Anyone has the right to do either one.
If he wants to make it so windows users can't read his mail, that's his problem. And if he wants to exclude windows users from posting to his mailing list, well it's his mailing list, he can moderate it any way he wants to.
Now, is this polite? No not really.There are certainly better ways of getting your point across. Perhaps he would be better served by warning people upon joining his mailing list that windows clients are frowned upon for whatever reasons and pointing them to some equivalent free software.
Ender
Nothing to see here
Fair enough. But why is it such an abhorrent crime then if someone designs a website that is readable only to internet explorer users (>80% of users). Slashdotters lose their minds when someone has a website that netscape 3 can't read properly, but this guy is some sort of a hero. I love hypocrisy!
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"?
So if you use Windows, you must be some diseased leper who isn't fit to lick the boots of Nick Moffitt. What a jerk. This is exactly the kind of person who turns people off to Linux, free software, etc.
Nope, wrong. If you are not technically competent enough to figure out how to play, you don't get to. Simply screening out, using his criteria. I know plenty of technically competent people who use Windows that would have no problem figuring this out.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
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 dislike HTML format mail, despite using clients that can read it. I dislike it for the following reasons:
1) It adds little or no value. Okay, so you feel that you can format the mail more readably using HTML. I find that I can make mails perfectly readable without it, so for me, it adds no value.
2) It wastes bandwidth. So what? I have a 10Mbps connection at work internally, with a 100Mbps connection to the outside world. At home, I have a 0.5Mbps ADSL conneciton, so what do I care? Well, email is the single biggest cause of traffic on the internet, beating web browsing, P2P apps, ftp, etc. If everyone sent all their mails in HTML, that amount of traffic would double or triple - HTML format mails tend to be two or three times the size of the equivalent plain text. That's simply a waste of bandwidth (given 1 above, which I know you disagree with)
3) Not all mail readers cope with HTML properly. This is a bigger concern for me - I'm afraid some of my friends use mail clients such as mutt, and so HTML mail is a hassle for them.
4) HTML spam is much worse than plain text spam. I always set my mail client to prefer plain text, because you can't embed cookies in URLs to images in plain text. Doing so in an HTML mail gives a clear indication that the mail address is valid (as the image has been requested, the mail has been recieved and read). I don't reply to spam for the same reason; let them think that there's no-one at the address, that the mail was just swallowed silently by a server somewhere.
5) I have a big, fast connection now, but I didn't two weeks ago. Until two weeks ago, i had a 33.6 dial up connection with 'phone charges per minute. HTML mails sucked then because they're bigger, and they almost invariably come with img tags. Unless you can set your client to download the images too *and* cache them sensibly, you have to go online to read the mail properly everytime you want to read it.
I could probably go on, but they're the 5 biggest reasons why I dislike HTML mail. That said, I do think that everyone should feel free to send mail in whatever format they want. Of course, everyone also has the right to request that people communicate with them in a different format. Kind of like if I started speaking Japanese to you - I'd expect you to ask me to speak English. (I don't speak Japanese, but you get my point)
Oh, and his mails don't croak Outlook Express, it just doesn't display them properly. For what it's worth, though, I just tried the "begin bug" in OE 5.5 and the mail displayed correctly, so it looks like it's been fixed.
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
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!
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".
What was our reaction to MS disabling access to the MSN sites? And this is different exactly how?
In one case, case Microsoft software denied the user the ability to view content.
In the other case Microsoft software denied the user the ability to view content.
Hmm, I guess I see your point.
Why? Because usually when a site appears to be "only" readable by Internet Explorer, the reality is that it is using W3C standards that inferior browsers like Nutscrape don't implement properly.
Like it or lump it, that's the way it is, unless you're talking about ActiveX. Even though it usually makes sense to author your content for the widest audience, no one is under any obligation to do so.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
It may be hypocrisy to you. However, for me at least, motives make a difference in life. Most people make IE only web sites out of ignorance or lazyness. The thought that there are other browsers available may not even occur to them or, if it does, they are too lazy to try and make their web sites work on other browsers. In my opinion, neither laziness nor ignorance are defensible and I am perfectly happy to condem a site that doesn't look right under Opera.
In this case, Moffit is not lazy or ignorant. You might not agree with his motives but you have to admit that with his knowledge and with a full understanding of the consequences he made a -- pretty funny -- decision to limit the applications that can view his email.
I am willing to applaud him for it (even though at work I also have to use Outlook and therefor could be negatively affected by his choice.)
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
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.
To workaround this problem:
That's pretty funny.
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
>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
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.
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
this explains it
Anonymous posts are filtered.
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? :)
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".
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.
There is no standard where there is no free (as in speech) implementation. Seriously. Specs are not standards, they are implementation suggestions. The only real specs are code. The only truly documented standards have free (as in speech) implementations. I don't care how many people use it.
My boss agrees just fine. We have a largely Windows shop, but I feel well supported in my choice to not use it here. It's not idealism anyway. It's pragmatism. Bondage and slavery are uncomfortable and shorten ones lifespan.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Check these:
Group blasts Internet Explorer 5.5 for lack of Web standards
Review of Netscape6... see paragraph 2 damning IE W3C compliance
IE 5.5 criticized for lack of Web standards
Microsoft claims conformance to CSS level 1 and DOM level 1 in IE6, so maybe they have done an about face on this issue (much like suddenly deciding security is more important than idiot-friendliness). Unfortunately, 95% of the current Windows user base is using IE5 because it comes with the OS (through Win2K at least).
As a developer who has to provide web interfaces from time to time, I can promise you that it is a lot of work to make a site compatible with both IE and Netscape. Each one drops the ball when it comes to W3C conformance. I guess it's encouraging that MS is attempting to implement standards compliance into one of their products.
Try the word "begin" with two spaces after it followed by the attachment name. This should be at the beginning of its own line, as in:
begin blahblahblahThis will result in an attachment named "blahblahblah."
I just tried it with OE6 and it is buggy.
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
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.
So is that why IE6 renders PNG transparency so poorly? They're trying to outdo inferior browsers?
I do not have a signature
- 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.
[
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.
Is he being a jackass? Or maybe a little turnabout is fairplay?
When I thought about installing linux on my kids machine the first thing I did was go to every website that they visited to see if Netscape 6.2 would read the pages properly. barbie.com was the only one that didn't require Windows. Problems ranging from shockwave to Active-X, made it too much of a pain, for this newbie to make the plunge.
There is so much of the web now that caters to Windows / Mac that any other operating system is treated like someone that lives in a cabin in the woods.
Is this guy being a jackass, probably. Is the guy that tells you, you can't enter a resturant because you have on jeans instead of a suit, being a jackass? probably. Any difference? not really
Vertical
72 CD D7 52 D0 7E D8 47 44 91 D5 84 D1 59 F1 A9-This is my 128bit integer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
And this is sharp contrast to IE 4? If you are going to compare the browsers, at least compare current browsers, don't compare the current IE to the 2 year old Netscape.
Enigma
If you can get your high horse to slow down long enough to step off it for a minute or two, you could install any of a zillion open source tools to modify your headers as messages pass in/out of your network, solving the problem and allowing you to use any MUA you please.
His point was that he wanted people to have to do a little work before they could be a part of the list. Ways of assessing that are imperfect, and his is just one. You can demonstrate you've done it by installing a non-default OS and/or MUA on your machine, or you can do as I've suggested above. Either way, you then pass, and are free to play.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
I love the "workarounds":
.. yeah, like a client has any choice about the potentially corrupt data (perhaps designed to tickle the bug).
/hope/ you've got the appropriate SP fixes for)
"Don't write the email that way."
Consider this theoretical KB for the ping of death ICMP packet written in the same patronizing tone:
"ICMP fragments which have wrong sizes can lead to a blue screen in the TCP/IP section of the operating system.
Workarounds:
* Don't receive an ICMP ping of death attack
* Try to not create malformed packets.
* Munge all ICMP packets so they are malformed UDP packets instead.
* Consider an alternate DoS to use on your own server, such as tear or land (which we
"
Afterall, it's not the client's responsibility to handle data from the universe at large(*).
(*) Ha. Go read "The Ten Commandments for C Programmers," specifically number 5.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
That's no personal vendetta.
He sends out perfectly legitimate mail. We've had this debate on Usenet a few times.
Outcrap^H^H^H^Hlook tries to decode a message as an uuencoded attachment as soon as a message body line starts with "begin ". Feel free to think of the ramifications of that. (And yes, that's not "Header". That's "body", i.e. text supposed to be read by the recipient.)
This bug has been known for ages. M$ just doesn't fix it. It used to be worse, though. There was a time when out look even tried to interpret or execute said attachement. People had signatures that sent every Windows machine into lock or reboot.
Apparently the only way to get M$ to fix the most obvious crappy bugs is to massively exploit them.
So be it.
f.
Actually, every single HTML email sent by a Microsoft Mail client is at least twice the size of the equivalent plain text message...
Why is that, you say? Because the email messages are actually sent as multipart/alternative ... meaning usually that there is a complete (quoted-printable) text copy of the messages, as well as a complete html copy of the same message. Add the mime delimeters, the html tags, the doctype, the microsoft specific meta tags... and you usually end up at 3 times or more the size of the text/plain messages...
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.
Yes, it is in contrast to IE4. IE4's implementation of CSS, while far from perfect, is far better than NS4. Perhaps you're thinking of IE3.
e rg rid.shtml
Netscape 4's CSS support was broken from day one, and none of the subsequent point updates have improved things much.
For a quick overview take a look at this handy chart:
http://www.webreview.com/style/css1/charts/mast
Oh, and his mails don't croak Outlook Express, it just doesn't display them properly. For what it's worth, though, I just tried the "begin bug" in OE 5.5 and the mail displayed correctly, so it looks like it's been fixed.
Negative. Bug exists. Microsoft's reply is that you ought not to do this. Nevermind that their email reader doesn't conform to RFC - the solution is to make email conform to THEM !
Use
begin at the start of a line followed by two spaces and then non-space characters.
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 :)