Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:16:36 -0500
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: gah! let's try that again - Re: google word list
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 12/20/2010 11:11 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> Ted White<twhite8 at cox.net>  wrote:
>> I'm fine with plain text, but I draw the line at fixed-width fonts,
>> all of which look ugly on a monitor screen, ...
>
> But a lot of text is in the form of tables or columns, intended to
> line up vertically.  One approach would be to be able to easily switch
> between fixed-width and proportional fonts, and to not complain unless
> both looked wrong.

That would work, if everyone had a mail reader that could do that.  A
common way to do it is to use HTML tables...but that won't work here.
Another way to do it is with a spreadsheet (or CSV) attachment, but
that's awkward, and I don't think attachments work here either.  Another
way to do it is to forget it.  I go with that method most of the time. ;-)

>> We're living in nearly the second decade of the 21st century now,
>> Keith, not the eighth decade of the 20th century.  I find it odd
>> that a man as much into personal computers as you are has chosen
>> to remain in their early years of development, softwear, etc.
>
> Uh, no.  I pick and choose what's best, rather than glomming onto
> whatever random junk is floating around this week and will be
> deprecated or forgotten next week.

HTML isn't going away.  It's been around since the early 90s, and it,
and its offspring XML, is getting more common, and used in more areas of
computing, all the time.  HTML5 is about to be the next big thing, but
HTML4, and earlier ones, are still supported by things that support
HTML5.  Some HTML tags can be problematic (like <object> or <iframe>),
but the ones that create tables, italicize things, make lists, etc.
aren't.  The main problem with HTML in e-mail is that not everyone uses
a mail reader that can deal with MIME in general, or HTML in particular,
so messages won't be readable by all.  There are others as you've
mentioned before, like HTML use being one factor in deciding that a
message is spam, but it's not the only factor in most situations...or
mail would be useless given how much of it is HTML these days.

The real problem is applications, and protocols, that mix data with
code.  In the old days, mail messages were data.  Mail programs read
them in, and displayed them by sending the data to a terminal that had
hardware to display patterns of dots associated with various byte
values, and there was no way a mail message could harm your system.  The
worst it could do was annoy you with a repeated "bell" noise (^g). It
wasn't the fact that messages were ASCII, it was that they were DATA,
not CODE.  Once we started getting file attachments that could be
programs, or embedding commands that could cause code-like behavior, and
most especially buggy implementations of the interpreting software that
was required to display these complex messages that could be caused to
misbehave by specially crafted messages, we were open to attack.

...and ugly, unreadable e-mail (got one on another list today that was
in 36 point type...it was done as a joke referring to old people, and in
response to an old people remarking about the sender's music
preferences, but I've also seen many messages sent in fonts that were
too small to read...so I didn't.

> Note that in over eight years this list has only gotten one spam, and
> no viruses.  And none of my home systems have ever gotten a virus or
> been taken over by a botnet.  So I think I know what I'm doing.

I used to run my machines here with static IPs and direct access to the
net.  Never got a virus, or taken over by a botnet either.  Part of the
reason was that most of the machines were running OpenVMS, which treats
e-mail as data, and which isn't vulnerable to most of the methods used
to violate Windoze machines, and part of it was that the Windoze
machines had firewalls, I turned off ActiveX and other dangerous things
in browsers, ran Firefox, didn't use Outlook, and generally was careful.

Only exception was a new Win-XP laptop that, when first hooked up and
while downloading the firewall and all the various OS patches from
Microsoft, got a portscanning worm (Welchia32), but the malware checker
found it, and it was removed easily.  Tests have shown that time to
infect on the net for an unprotected and unpatched Windoze machine is
about half the time it takes to download protection and patches.

These days all the machines are behind a NAT router...and still have
firewalls, no Outlook, etc.  Next step, when I get spare time, is to set
up Snort on my new Ubuntu Server LAN server machine, just in case.  It's
on all the time anyway, so it might as well monitor the LAN for
suspicious behavior by the other machines.

The LAN server is a Fit-PC2...check it out sometime.  Amazing little
device...about half the size of a paperback book, 1.6 Ghz Atom
processor, 1 Gb of RAM, mine has 500 GB of HD, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, 6 USB
ports, HDMI video output, IrDA port, and it only draws 13 watts when the
disk is in use, and more like 7 watts when not...and the only moving
part is the HD...and that could be done away with by using a solid state
drive...when the price comes down I'll probably do that.  Cost is about
the same as a netbook...about $320.  I'm using Ubuntu Server to supply
LAN services, but you can run Windows on it if you like...some people
are using VESA mounts to attach them to the back of the monitor and
making very compact desktops, others are using them as media servers,
and still others, with SSDs, are using them for mobile applications in
cars and boats, since the input power is 12v (uses a "wall wart" for
home use).

For dealing with malware from browsing, I'm considering going to a VM
and setting it to revert to the last snapshot when it shuts down.  That
way, if it gets infected, I just reboot it and no more malware.

>> However, and more to the point, what failed you in your misguided
>> attempt to underline a word with symbols a line below it is the
>> simple fact that each of us has undoubtedly chosen a different
>> number of characters for line-wrapping (width of right-hand margins;
>> a wide or narrow column of type), if we've chosen any at all,
>
> Line-wrapping is up to the sender.  The recipient then sees the line
> breaks wherever the sender put them.  The recipient can change them,
> but will only do so if they look really screwed up.  At least that's
> how it's supposed to work.

If you are on an old terminal, yes.  With Windows GUIs the wrapping
happens where the sender put them only if the window is wide enough to
allow that, otherwise there are usually other breaks added to the
display.  In Thunderbird I can make your message wrap every couple of
words by making the window narrow enough.

>> with the result that it was very unlikely that your "underlining"
>> would end up under the word you wished.
>
> I'd bet that most people on the list saw it under the correct word.

I did.  Even if I hadn't, it was obvious which word you meant...I saw it
in the original message too.

-- Mike B.