Subject: Re: VIRUS WARNING

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 18:48:37 -0600 (MDT)

> From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>

> --------------95872F20B70C837D61220742
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> Vernon Schryver wrote:
>
> > What good is HTML based email if it cannot run
> > scripts or even contain links to other HTML content?
>
> Well, there's basic formatting:
>
>  * Simple font variations (italics, bold, color, font) are an easy way to add
>    a bit of expressiveness to your text.
>       o Everybody says that the problem with email is that it's not expressive
>         enough.
>       o To compensate, we've got an elaborate set of conventions for imitating
>         what you can do in print and face-to-face (smileys, *asterisks* for
>         emphasis, etc.).
>       o But new users don't know these conventions.
>       o HTML offers the ability to do the same thing more comprehensibly.
>         Actual smiley faces, italics for emphasis (just like people are used
>         to seeing in print), headings.
>   * And, of course, lists and tables are amazingly useful.

All of that can be done in pure ASCII.  
You don't have to be Shakespear to communicate with the written word
without more punctuation than existed in 1960.  There was no global plague
in 1970 that damage all English speaking brains so that they could no
longer communicate without 256 colors of foreground and background, and
1000 typefaces.  "Smileys" are particularly lame.  No joke is made funny
with a smiley nor is any insult prevented.

The conventions of bullet lists such as rendered by <LI> are also mere
conventions as opaque to the uninitiated as astrisks or capitalization
for emphasis.  Most of use are bright enough to not need any explicit
initiation to any reasonable convention; even smileys were obvious when
there was only 1 kind.

> And even simple links (never mind forms, applets, etc.) are great for, say,
> workflow applications.  When I worked for Netscape, HR made great use of HTML
> mail in the internal network.  When I wanted to take some vacation
> time, I filled out a form on the HR site; they would send mail to my manager,
> with one link to approve and one to deny.  Much easier than paper-based systems,
> or even non-email-based online systems (since the vacation request comes into
> the inbox you already check, instead of making you go someplace else).

Email is not a general purpose hammer.  All of those things work
far better with various other mechanisms than crammed into email.
Email can be a useful part of such systems, but competently designed
systems DO NOT do such things purely in email.

Worse, when crammed into email, those mechanisms are *INEVITABLE*
serious security problems.  Email is not only for communications
among intimates, such as you and your Human Resources Department.
If you let your MUA fully decode HTML every time you read a message, then
you are in deep trouble.  It's not just the Java and Javascript.  Do you
really want to tell strangers every time you look at their email because
it contains an <HREF> to a unique URL created just for the purpose?

> ...
> --------------95872F20B70C837D61220742
> Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> <!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
> <html>
> Vernon Schryver wrote:
> <blockquote TYPE=CITE>What good is HTML based email if it cannot run
> <br>scripts or even contain links to other HTML content?</blockquote>
> Well, there's basic formatting:
> <ul>
> <li>
> Simple font variations (italics, bold, color, font) are an easy way to
> add a bit of expressiveness to your text.</li>
> <ul>
> <li>
> ...

If the point in including an HTML encrypted version of the text in addition
to the plantext was to demonstrate the utility of HTML in email, it fell
flat.  The HTML version conveyed *nothing* to me that the plaintext did
not.  And yes, I checked by viewing the HTML with Netscape 4.7.

> ...
> <pre>--&nbsp;
> /===============================================================\
> |John Stracke&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; | <A HREF="http://www.ecal.com">http://www.ecal.com</A> |My opinions are my own. |
> |Chief Scientist |==============================================|
> |eCal Corp.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; |Whose cruel idea was it for the word "lisp" to|
> [email-masked]|have an "S" in it?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; |
> \===============================================================/</pre>
> &nbsp;</html>

That's what your signature looks like encrypted with HTML.
(I'm hoping my archaic quote leading will keep too-smart-by-half MUA's
from collapsing it into reasonableness)
Who could prefer it to the plaintext version?

> /===============================================================\
> |John Stracke    | http://www.ecal.com |My opinions are my own. |
> |Chief Scientist |==============================================|
> |eCal Corp.      |Whose cruel idea was it for the word "lisp" to|
> [email-masked]|have an "S" in it?                            |
> \===============================================================/

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

---

From: "Michael H. Warfield" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 21:03:39 -0400

On Thu, May 11, 2000 at 06:48:37PM -0600, Vernon Schryver wrote:

	[...]

> with a smiley nor is any insult prevented.

	Actually...  On the point of smilies, I will give you an argument
and that argument is that you've missed the real point.  We are in a
multicultural environment here.  Some participants do not speak English
as their first language or maybe not even as their second.  Many, even
amongst the English based, don't understand each other idionyms and slang
terms.  How many know that the term "sheeetload" is a Southern US American
metric measure of volume?  :-)  Communications goes above and beyond
simple words.

	In f2f communications, they say that the majority of communications
is non-verbal.  Body language, intonation, expressions, all play a part.
Smilies are an, abet lame, attempt to add some of that non-verbal language
back into written communications.  It helps convey the point of humor to
those who do might not recognize it.  It helps convey sarcasm and refine
remarks to direct them along the lines which they are meant.  I've used
numerous remarks that could be taken seriously, humorously, figuratively,
or literally and the thing that stands between communication and
missunderstanding are those darn smilies to convey the underlying meaning.
This is especially important when you can't even be sure what country
or culture you are communicating with.

	I will say that HTML is IMHO worthless and inappropriate in
E-Mail.  Similies, OTOH, are much like the universal symbol signs we
see up every.  Their purpose is to convey meaning even when the language
is not [fully] understood.  And language, in this case, means one hell
of a lot more than one word strung after another.  :-/

> initiation to any reasonable convention; even smileys were obvious when

	[...]

> systems DO NOT do such things purely in email.

	Could not agree more.

> it contains an <HREF> to a unique URL created just for the purpose?

	[...]

> Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

	Mike
-- 
 Michael H. Warfield    |  (770) 985-6132   |  [email-masked]
  (The Mad Wizard)      |  (770) 331-2437   |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
  NIC whois:  MHW9      |  An optimist believes we live in the best of all
 PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471    |  possible worlds.  A pessimist is sure of it!

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 13:53:05 +0100 (BST)

On Thu, 11 May 2000, Vernon Schryver wrote:

> 1000 typefaces.

It came earlier than that. It was called "television".

L.

can't stand sentences whose grammart doesn't follow Boole.

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>