12 Mar
2017
12 Mar
'17
10:12 p.m.
From: Random832
I think he means the fact that MIME specifies the type
of the main
message body (not just attachments), so you can have a message with *no*
text parts.
Right, that I could discern; what I couldn't get with an definitiveness was
_why_ that was particularly a problem.
(Another possibility, other than the one I previously gave, is perhaps that
there simply is no text part, which one can peruse, ignoring the rest?)
Noel
13 Mar
13 Mar
2:58 p.m.
New subject: attachments: MIME and uuencode
On 12 Mar 2017 18:12 -0400, from jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa):
(Another possibility, other than the one I previously
gave, is perhaps that
there simply is no text part, which one can peruse, ignoring the rest?)
Well, one could argue that if whoever is sending you something doesn't
even bother with telling you why they are sending it and what it is,
then is it really worth your time?
I can live with multipart/alternative { text/plain, text/html }
messages where the plain text part is actually _meaningful_ (my MUA is
set up to do nothing with text/html unless I ask it, at which point
they are fed through 'lynx -dump' plus a few other parameters), but
have been known to shoot back HTML-_only_ messages to the originator.
Usually with a comment to the effect of "this looks like it came
through garbled". I'm still waiting for the first such recipient to
obviously take the hint, but I haven't yet given up hope.
The worst part is that apparently lots of "modern" MUAs don't handle
multipart messages well. As in they'll get a perfectly fine MIME
multi-message e-mail (for example a forwarded message plus some
commentary), and it apparently shows up as _blank_. Yes, yes, MIME is
a complex standard with lots of potential pitfalls, but really,
_blank_? As in nothing showing up at all? Even _Outlook_ does better
than that.
--
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael(a)kjorling.se
“People who think they know everything really annoy
those of us who know we don’t.” (Bjarne Stroustrup)
9:56 p.m.
New subject: attachments: MIME and uuencode
On Mon, 13 Mar 2017, Michael Kjörling wrote:
I can live with multipart/alternative { text/plain,
text/html } messages
where the plain text part is actually _meaningful_ (my MUA is set up to
do nothing with text/html unless I ask it, at which point they are fed
through 'lynx -dump' plus a few other parameters), but have been known
to shoot back HTML-_only_ messages to the originator. Usually with a
comment to the effect of "this looks like it came through garbled". I'm
still waiting for the first such recipient to obviously take the hint,
but I haven't yet given up hope.
Procmail? I'd like to have that script :-)
--
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will
suffer."
14 Mar
14 Mar
10:33 a.m.
New subject: attachments: MIME and uuencode
Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
|On Mon, 13 Mar 2017, Michael Kjörling wrote:
|> I can live with multipart/alternative { text/plain, text/html } messages
|> where the plain text part is actually _meaningful_ (my MUA is set up to
|> do nothing with text/html unless I ask it, at which point they are fed
|> through 'lynx -dump' plus a few other parameters), but have been known
|> to shoot back HTML-_only_ messages to the originator. Usually with a
|> comment to the effect of "this looks like it came through garbled".
I'm
|> still waiting for the first such recipient to obviously take the hint,
|> but I haven't yet given up hope.
|
|Procmail? I'd like to have that script :-)
This really is a kind script of yours, using MIME multipart/mixed
and only providing the text part. What spread in the wild
(initiated by a member of the RedHat security team as far as
i know) was using multipart/alternative but then not providing the
alternative.
|Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will \
|suffer."
I don't really care as long as plain text mail is possible, and
used, except that, here Michael Kjörling is unfortunately right,
that major players like Google Groups sent out digests where the
text partial was mutilated to being useless, for example not even
giving a complete subject line, whereas the alternative HTML part
gave at least some text (the details i have forgotten). This was
in 2015. By sheer distress i added an option to favour the HTML
part of multipart mails, and then got bitten from this new
alternative-less trend. (My MUA is too stupid yet to handle this
with a bit of intelligence.) The good news is that in the
meanwhile even the HTML part has become practically useless if you
don't have a (i think, fully blown) browser at hand.
--steffen
16 Mar
16 Mar
6:52 p.m.
New subject: attachments: MIME and uuencode
On 14 Mar 2017 08:56 +1100, from dave(a)horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall):
Sorry, no automation, but it'd probably be possible to cobble
something together using procmail and formail. Just "unauto_view *"
and "alternative_order text/plain text/html text" plus hitting
"reply"
in Mutt and coming up with something bearing a not too close
resemblance to insults. The exact wording tends to vary with how
annoyed I am at the particular sender at the moment.
--
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael(a)kjorling.se
“People who think they know everything really annoy
those of us who know we don’t.” (Bjarne Stroustrup)
I can live
with multipart/alternative { text/plain, text/html } messages
where the plain text part is actually _meaningful_ (my MUA is set up to
do nothing with text/html unless I ask it, at which point they are fed
through 'lynx -dump' plus a few other parameters), but have been known
to shoot back HTML-_only_ messages to the originator. Usually with a
comment to the effect of "this looks like it came through garbled". I'm
still waiting for the first such recipient to obviously take the hint,
but I haven't yet given up hope.
Procmail? I'd like to have that script :-)
2870
days inactive
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4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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Dave Horsfall -
jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu -
Michael Kjörling -
Steffen Nurpmeso