At 8:09 AM -0700 6/23/2000, Chris McEwen wrote:
>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.
Agreed. that's why active content worries me so much.
> The public may want active content but only up to the time that
>their business records are lost.
nope. they'll still want their content, they'll just want it safely.
And as a list admin, I think it's part of our responsibility to make
sure that what we deliver is safe.
>
>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.
true, but you also have ot know your audience. If it's technically
sophisticated, you can give them the onus of responsibilty, but fi
your users are more naive or not technical, I think it's important to
be more careful about saving them from themselves -- after all, the
technically naive/inexperienced sees a link, and doesn't necessarily
understand what happens behind the link. For that matter iwth the
technically naive, it's probably not safe to assume they understand
that link might not be generated by the list server itself...
>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.
If you're just sending HTML instead of plain text, it's a little
under double. If you do multipart/alternative, it's about 3X because
both forms are enclosed. If you embed the graphics in the file,
you're probably crazy, but the file size is based on the encoded
graphic sizes. We don't embed graphics, both because of file size
issues and because it allows users to tell their readres to turn off
graphics if they want, so they have the option.
Network bandwidth just isn't going to be that big of an issue --
other than if you're going to do something like this, you need to
make sure you have bandwidth. Same can be said for verping. To be
honest, though, unless you run lists where bounces are fairly well
controlled, you're likely wasting a bunch of bandwidth on bounces
already...
>At some point functionality will have to prevail over fashion. I just know
>it.
it is -- these things add lots of new capability and functionality.
it can be used badly, but it doesn't invalidate the technologies.
--
Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'"
