[plug] need to upgrade? -was Re: [plug] kmail and the gigasecond bug

[Bret Busby]

Christian wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 10, 2001 at 01:49:23PM +0800, Greg Mildenhall wrote:
> 
>>Christian, I don't know how to break this to you, but:
>>Some people send HTML files as part of the _main_body_ of their emails,
>>rather than as an attachment.
>>(Be strong now. I know it is difficult to come to terms with such a scary,
>>mixed-up world, but I'm sure that you deal with the trauma, given time.)
>>I think that is what Bret was talking about.
>>The answer is to his question is yes, anything that is not declared to be
>>otherwise by MIME should be treated as raw text.
>>
> 
> Yes, it's a horrible mixed up world.  But what I said before still
> counts.  The HTML emails I get come up in mutt with an option to view
> them.  I press 'v' and they load up in my browser.  The most annoying
> thing is that this makes them hard to quote reply to but usually my reply
> consists of 'Please re-send this not in HTML' so it's not really a
> problem.
> 
> But I don't think this is what Bret was talking about.  He's worried
> that the apocalypse may come to his network and computer based upon him
> receiving HTML emails.
> 
> 

What Bret was actually talkng about, was someone sending HTML messages, 
and, about attachments being incorporated into messages.

I forsee two problems with HTML in messages; the first, is malicious 
code - either in the form pf a virus/worm or in an attempted "hack" - 
someone trying to otherwise breach the security of a system, the second, 
is the nuisance of flowery pictures on messages with ornate arty-farty 
backgrounds, combined with the size of the messages, and, therefore, the 
  waste of bandwidth; the time taken to download, and then to load for 
reading, the messages.

However, from what Christian has said, I believe that mutt defaults to 
the text version, with an option of displaying the arty-farty version.

I believe my questions have been answered.

Thanks everyone, for your advice.

Bret Busby
..........