HTML Email - was [oclug] Stormix troubles...

[Shad Young]

Heh heh,

In the immortal words of Robbin Wiliams from the movie Awakenings:

"I would agree with you if you were right."

*chuckles*

As to the other objections, HTML mail is not by definition *multi-part mime
encoded*, its formatted text.  And frankly your so called "security concerns" are
ridiculous at best (this is what I meant when I asked if the person made it up,
the advisory is only that, it is -not- saying there is any legitimate threat by
this). Email spam has so many mechanisms to be proliferated, a universal ban on
HTML formatted email would not even be noticeable in reducing it.. 99.99% of email
spammers do not rightly give a sh*t if your addy exists or not.

There is only one issue that has any bearing on this ridiculous thread, do email
clients support HTML formatted mail. Most morden ones do. Time to update if your
pine does not. As for Netscape; the objection to it by some on this list is hardly
a reason to ban html mail. If you're running X, your choices for an email clients
go beyond Netscape. Hell, even Kmail defaults to HTML formatting.

You want to stop the proliferation of email spam? Teach people how to close their
open relays (this is security, not some rediculous never used verification
system). Get governments to enact useful and enforceable legislation and then
actually enforce it.  Be a bit more careful with your web surfing. Do not splash
your email address all over the place so it can be harvested. Get mailing lists
(like this one) to put in properly formatted robots.txt files in their publicly
accessable web archives (a haven for harvesters)... and the list goes on. HTML
formatted mail is not now, and has never been a security issue. Clients like MS
Outlook are.

The point here folks, if you have decided in your day to day life to use an email
client so outdated that it can not handle what is nearly a universally accepted
format for email (or in Brads case even email itself hehe) that is your -choice-.
Linux is about -choice- (contrary to Andrew "stalin" Huttons oppinion on freedom).
There are mechanisms to deal with formatted text by all modern email clients and
things like mailx etc. were never intended for use as an "Internet Mail client",
they were intended for use as network pagers and sys-admin messaging. And you know
what? On my network I still use them for just the purpose it was designed for, and
within its intended constraints they work wonderfully.

Final point: So far the argument supporting PGP sigs has been "I think its cool".
Well, if your allowed to find it cool while I do not, why then am I not allowed to
use what I think is cool? Further, I think nicely formatted text in my emails is
not just cool, but necessary when contacting clients and I shall continue to use
it irrespective of this lists entirely unsupportable opinions of it.

Shad

bbarnett at l8r.net wrote:

> On 09-Feb-2001 Shad Young wrote:
> > "Michael P. Soulier" wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, Feb 08, 2001 at 09:19:15AM -0500, Stephen.Gregory at cse-cst.gc.ca
> >> wrote:
> >> > I disable HTML in emails for security reasons. I encorage others to do so.
> >> > If I recieve an HTML email message *and* it looks important I will view
> >> > its
> >> > source first. Often it just gets deleted.
> >> >
> >> > The security reasons I speak of aren't the obvious I-Love-You type
> >> > mailbombs. Disabling java script in emails is usually enough to prevent
> >> > those. Rather it is the img or meta-refresh bugs that let the spammer know
> >> > that they have a valid email address. And there are other security similar
> >> > issues.
> >
> > I'm killing myself laughing here...you just make that up? ROFL
> >
> >>
> >> >
> >> > <rant>
> >> > HTMl email also suffers from web bloat. Authors who insist on using their
> >> > favorite fonts, colours, and 5cm wide 2m long text columns. I can't read
> >> > those stupid 13px fonts. I have a 19" monitor dammit. It runs at 1600x1200
> >> > not 640x480!
> >> > </rant>
> >
> > um, you can define a default font size overiding the actual html specified
> > font... and the fact that you chose to run your monitor at an eye strain
> > resolution is your choice. Nobody is making you use it.
> >
> >
> >>
> >> >
> >> > While I agree that text email seems rather primitive it does a good job of
> >> > sending messages between people. If people insist on sending printer
> >> > formated
> >> > text with stupid colours and images they can use postscript or pdf.
> >>
> >
> > And the fact is no one on this list is sending spam, just the ocasional
> > somewhat
> > nicer format of HTML. None of you have even begun to put forth a valid reason
> > to
> > refuse formatted text in linux. The "I love you" virus has ZERO effect in
> > this OS
> > (it was a outlook express exploit or have you all forgotten that?). An
> > um..pdf is
> > a proprietary format (hmm smells of hipocracy again) and Postscript renders
> > so
> > poorly in linux as to be nearly useless (unless you intend to -print- each
> > and
> > every mail you get)
> >
> >>
> >>     Amen! Not to mention the fact that while there is an HTML standard, no
> >>     one
> >> conforms to the damn thing, so I'm not about to support HTML mail any time
> >> soon.
> >>
> >>     Mike
> >
> > Please, give me a break.  Many of us who use HTML conform to the standards.
> > Again
> > these are some increadibly weak arguments. All I am hearing from you lot is a
> > bunch of ol' time elitist snobbery. Hail the good ol days, Unix is alive and
> > well!
> >
> > Laughing uncontrollably at the lunacy of this list.
> >
> > Shad
> >
>
> Aside from all the points above Shad, the big one is that very few linux email
> programs actually natively support HTML.  Secondly, it doesn't show very well
> on a cell phone, and it doesn't work well _at all_ on things like pine.
>
> Since this is a linux list, it makes sense to not post in HTML, since a large
> percentage of the list 1) doesn't like it and 2) can't view it.  Running
> external programs to view such things is clunky at best.  Using netscape is
> insane.. it doesn't support multpile pop accounts, etc, etc, etc.. and its a
> bit of a bloat for an email program.  Its always crashing, right and left.
>
> Now, if this was a list that was mainly populated by people using Windows, or
> MacOS.. or another OS that had a wide variety of email programs that did html
> email natively, then it would make sense for there to be a tolerante view on
> the subject.
>
> ---------------
>
> I suggest we take a vote on the subject and if the nays have it (as I suspect
> they will), we start to bounce html emails back to the author.
>
> Sound good?
>
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