[plug] Poll regarding attachments, Terry Pratchett, Chinese proverbs

[Bernard Blackham]

On Tue, Aug 20, 2002 at 11:57:51PM +0800, wayne wrote:

> 
> So what's wrong with my Outlook Express wrt JamesB et al emails?
> 

Outlook Express doesn't cope with PGP signatures properly.  PGP-signed
messages are sent as MIME 'multipart/signed' messages, in a similar way to
HTML messages being sent as 'multipart/alternative' and attachments as
'multipart/mixed'. One part of the message is the text of the letter, and
the other is the PGP signature, which allows you to verify that the message
was actually written by the right person.  This is a good thing. proXy wrote
to the list not long ago that he was forced to use PGP because people were
impersonating him. Similarly, this message seems to have been sent by
Bernard.  But was it really?  Those who have a PGP-capable mail client will
know exactly who sent it.

For some reason, Outlook interprets the two parts of the signed message as
two different attachments, unlike most other email clients which show it as
a message and an attachment, or the message and some reassuring text
informing you of the person who signed it.

There are many email clients which are much more capable, and much less
virus-prone, available for both Windows and Linux.  I suggest that you look
into installing either Eudora or Sylpheed.

Cheers,

Bernard.

-- 
 Bernard Blackham
 bernard at blackham.com.au
 Australian Linux Technical Conference 2003: http://www.linux.conf.au/

(Oops. That last message was s'posed to have Bernard's From: headers, like
this one does. Ah well.  *runs away in shame*)
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