Re: [nmh-workers] Bleeping idiots!
>> >Content-Type: text/html; charset="ansi_x3.4-1968" >> >> That character set is interesting. > >The 1968 revision allows LF to occur on its own compared to 1967's where >it always had to be LF CR or CR LF, but other than that still had many >of 67's oddities, e.g. ‘!’ could be rendered as ‘!’ or ‘|’, ditto ‘^’ >that was allowed to look like ‘¬’. Probably not the creator of that >Content-Type field's intention. I was more thinking that I was not sure that was valid, but I guess looking at the IANA registry it's a permitted alias for us-ascii. I am wondering if either that was some software that did that, or some human thought that was a good idea. --Ken -- nmh-workers https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [nmh-workers] Bleeping idiots!
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 09:44:58 +0100, Ralph Corderoy said: > Hi Ken, > > > >Content-Type: text/html; charset="ansi_x3.4-1968" > > > > That character set is interesting. > > The 1968 revision allows LF to occur on its own compared to 1967's where > it always had to be LF CR or CR LF, but other than that still had many > of 67's oddities, e.g. ‘!’ could be rendered as ‘!’ or ‘|’, ditto ‘^’ > that was allowed to look like ‘�’. Probably not the creator of that > Content-Type field's intention. Maybe the creator was an embittered ex-PL/I programmer? :) pgpnP_DGqG6Wt.pgp Description: PGP signature -- nmh-workers https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [nmh-workers] Bleeping idiots!
Hi rfg, > If this ever comes up again, what is the Right Answer? Please continue to ask the list questions, but you may also find nmh(7) useful as an index of interesting man pages. -- Cheers, Ralph. -- nmh-workers https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [nmh-workers] Bleeping idiots!
Hi Ken, > >Content-Type: text/html; charset="ansi_x3.4-1968" > > That character set is interesting. The 1968 revision allows LF to occur on its own compared to 1967's where it always had to be LF CR or CR LF, but other than that still had many of 67's oddities, e.g. ‘!’ could be rendered as ‘!’ or ‘|’, ditto ‘^’ that was allowed to look like ‘¬’. Probably not the creator of that Content-Type field's intention. -- Cheers, Ralph. -- nmh-workers https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [nmh-workers] Bleeping idiots!
On Mon, Jul 15, 2019 at 8:47 PM Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: Given a single > part email message with the MIME headers I've described above, what is > the simplest way for a person, such as myself, to be able to view the > raw HTML (but decoded out of base64, of course)? > See Ken's reply. "show" works for me. Or to see the raw message with decoded base64, try "mhfixmsg -o -" and pipe the output to your favorite pager. David -- nmh-workers https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [nmh-workers] Bleeping idiots!
>Relevant MINE headers were as follows: > >Content-Type: text/html; charset="ansi_x3.4-1968" THAT character set is intersting. >It's not just that HTML is largely pointless and unnecessarily wasteful >of bandwidth. It's that morons working in the bowels of corporations >all over this planet clearly have no idea how to properly craft even >HTMLized email messages in such a way that they will render properrly >for those of us who use plain text email clients like nmh. Wlll ... it's not that I disagree with you, exactly. But I think you're just screaming into the void at this point. First, sending someone a link that they have to cut & paste (as opposed to just being able to click on it) is pretty user-unfriendly. Secondly, the number of people who use a plain text email client is MINISCULE compared to the entire universe of email users. That battle has been lost a long time ago. I know some people are still fighting it, but I think the rest of the world doesn't even have the the perception that email is "plain text", so they don't even recognize that there is something people would fight about. These are just the facts as I see them, no matter how much you or I would prefer otherwise. Complaining that the Internet doesn't work with nmh is the wrong way around; it's nmh that has to do better. So as a first step I would suggest you disabuse yourself of the notion the email is "plain text"; that hasn't been true for a long time. Once you accept that, you'll realize it shouldn't matter what the format of the message is, or what the encoding is. >If this ever comes up again, what is the Right Answer? Given a single >part email message with the MIME headers I've described above, what is >the simplest way for a person, such as myself, to be able to view the >raw HTML (but decoded out of base64, of course)? mhstore will happily extract out the parts from email and perform the proper decoding, like Howard Bampton suggested. When faced with similar emails on my system, the out-of-the-box setup automatically runs HTML emails through w3m, and I have w3m configured so that it assigns every hyperlink a number and there are a list of all of the link locations at the bottom of the message text. So I know that if I need to click on link [3], I can just look for [3] at the bottom and do the appropriate cut & paste. I believe that a stock setup on FreeBSD using the latest port should do that (except for the w3m part regarding the hyperlink summary), but it sounds like you have configured things to undo all of our hard work on that front, or maybe there's a problem with the package you are using. >And yes, 'll be back again to get some final help with unsnarling my >substantially mucked up personal nmh configuration when, if ever, I >can just get my head above the water line. (Not this week, that's for >sure.) I will note that if you used all of the time you spent dealing with these HTML emails and instead dealt with your nmh configuration so it was all handled natively, you'd probably be ahead of the game time-wise :-/ --Ken -- nmh-workers https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
Re: [nmh-workers] Bleeping idiots!
On Mon, Jul 15, 2019 at 8:47 PM Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: > > > > If this ever comes up again, what is the Right Answer? Given a single > part email message with the MIME headers I've described above, what is > the simplest way for a person, such as myself, to be able to view the > raw HTML (but decoded out of base64, of course)? > base64 -d message I'm not near my nmh mailbox, but something very similar to that should work. You could also use "mhn -store" to extract the various parts (do this in a secure scratch area as it'll piddle files that you'll want to remove later and which have the sensitive link). It looks like "mhstore" is the more modern and non-depricated way to do this. I don't recall offhand if it'll decode them back to ASCII or not, but the resulting ###.html file can then be rendered by your web browser of choice (CLI or GUI). -- nmh-workers https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
[nmh-workers] Bleeping idiots!
I'me still backed up with unfinished tasks, piled to the rafters, and i'm still trying to save the world for evil nternet criminals, so alas, I have to report that I *still* having had time to go back to read and do all of the helpful suggestions that were made to me regarding how to get my personal nmh configuration fully unsnarled, once and for all. I hope you'll all frgive me for that. It is still very much on my todo list, but meanwhile, daily life keeps interrupting me, usually with some utterly pointless idiocy. Like today. A certain insurance company, which shall remain nameless, wanted me to set up an account on their web site, so that I could do stuff like, you know, make payments and check my outstanding balance. OK. Fine. I know the drill. So I go to the web site, fill in all of the innane questions necessary to preserve the false impression of actual security (for the benefit of the great unwashed masses) and at the end, of course, they send me a confirmation email, from which I am supposed to fish out a link and either click on it (which I can't because nmh doesn't do that) or else do like I have hundreds of times before, cutr and paste the link into a browser window, and then hit enter and (hopefully) I'm done. This is where things got interesting. Relevant MINE headers were as follows: Content-Type: text/html; charset="ansi_x3.4-1968" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 And here is a summary of what nmh showed me: You’re almost done! To get your <> ID, just complete this final step. Simply click the link below Confirm your email address > The link above will expire 90 days from when it was sent. If you have not confirmed your email address and you need a new confirmation link, you will receive one when you sign in. Your privacy is important to us. If you did not register for a <> ID, please call our Customer Service Advocates at the number on the back of your member ID card... Of course, I immediately went and looked at the raw text of the email file in my inbox directory. That was zero help, cuz the body text was all base64 encoded. Chalk this up as yet another reason why I hope that *someone* will eventually find the son of a bitch who thought that putting HTML into emails would be a good idea, and I hope that that someone will murder the lousey son of a bitch in his sleep. It's not just that HTML is largely pointless and unnecessarily wasteful of bandwidth. It's that morons working in the bowels of corporations all over this planet clearly have no idea how to properly craft even HTMLized email messages in such a way that they will render properrly for those of us who use plain text email clients like nmh. Fortunately, I managed, in the end to make contact with a helpful "web support" minion who works for the insurance company in question and after a brief verbal dance, she pressed some button on her end to finish up the confirmation of my shiny new online account on this company's web site. (Don't even get me started about the possible security implications and the whole topic of "social engineering".) Ok, now that I have gotten THAT rant off my chest... If this ever comes up again, what is the Right Answer? Given a single part email message with the MIME headers I've described above, what is the simplest way for a person, such as myself, to be able to view the raw HTML (but decoded out of base64, of course)? I feel sure that I could slap something together based on the availability of a wealth of helpful Perl library MIME handling routines, but I also feel sure that someone else has already invented the exact wheel I'm looking for, so if someone would be so kind as to simply tell me where to get it, that would be appreciated. And yes, 'll be back again to get some final help with unsnarling my substantially mucked up personal nmh configuration when, if ever, I can just get my head above the water line. (Not this week, that's for sure.) Regards, rfg -- nmh-workers https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
