Plain text posting
Hi I have noticed an increased tendency of a few people to post to plain text lists using attachments. Quite apart from minor irritations such as increased bandwidth and the necessity to open attachments some people seem to have the mistaken impression that the practise of sending messages via a PGP signed attachments somehow adds to general recipient security rather than diminish it by encouraging careless attachment usage. It may be important to remember the general principle that the customary opening of attachments is inherently more risky than a plain text message for the recipent even when PGP signed. The less secure the operating system of the immediate recipent the more risky the practice. Viruses, which may not be able to infect a primary recipient often reach their targets by being forwared from a primary to a secondary recipent on a more vulnerable platform. PGP only tells us that the message has not changed in transit. A malformed/abusive/virus laden attachment is still malformed/abusive/virus laden even if PGP signed. Can we please stick to plain text UNLESS the material cannot reasonably be transmitted without being in attachment form. There is no benefit to be gained from attachments otherwise. Thanks David To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-stable in the body of the message
Re: Plain text posting
At 7:48 am -0700 9/7/02, vizion communication wrote: Hi [...snip...] Can we please stick to plain text UNLESS the material cannot reasonably be transmitted without being in attachment form. There is no benefit to be gained from attachments otherwise. I heartily concur. An additional problem is in message digests where the relationship between the attachment and the original message is lost. One finds onself scrolling through reams of base64. Robin. -- Robin Melville, Information manager Addiction Forensic Information Service Nottingham Healthcare NHS Tust Tel: +44 (0)115 952 9478 Fax: +44 (0)115 952 9421 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Pages: http://www.nadt.org.uk/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-stable in the body of the message
