The threat of hostile active content in a world that has seen an explosion
of email borne viruses makes the thought of permitting any such messages
unthinkable. The public may want active content but only up to the time that
their business records are lost.
Side comment on the level of threat on embedded active content vs links to
active content. In the case of links, the list member is taking the
initiative. This is not the case in embedded content.
Second problem, exploding band width, isn't only a matter of the receiving
side's capacity. What about the server? If a list of 5,000 members sends 20
messages a day averaging 4k, the bandwidth is 380 MB per day or 11 GB a
month. Double or triple that with HTML and applets. Then consider that is
only one list on one server. Imagine the same server has 50 lists. Then
imagine the backbone. Then imagine... and imagine... and imagine....
At some point functionality will have to prevail over fashion. I just know
it.
--Chris McEwen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Socrates Press
----- Original Message -----
From: Chuq Von Rospach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<snip>
On the other hand, opening up to mime opens you up to problems,
especially with active content (from java, jscript, applets, flash,
whatever), as well as exploding message sizes. The exploding message
size is increasingly a minor issue thanks to 56k modems, DSL and
broadband, but still has to be considered. The active content stuff
still scares the cr@p out of me, especially given the recent virus
issues.
I currently want to get to a point where styled text is acceptable,
and non-active data can be attached (jpegs, gifs, png), managing that
by size of message limits; but at the same time, one also needs to
strip active content from the messages to be safe, and also strip
URLs to active content, since I don't think it matters if the virus
comes on the message, or if you click on a link and download the
virus... And that's the crux. No real tool yet that does that "well"
(which, IMHO, includes in-message documentation of what was
stripped...).
