Do people on Usenet have a cow when someone posts using PGP/MIME?

[David Gravereaux]

Just wondering, cause some people just don't seem to understand that
their Outlook Express and WLM is broken and has been dating back to
2001, not my MIME (and Usenet) legal posting style.[*]

I know I'm in a minority, but by how much?
Can we petition the EFF to sue M$ to fix it?


[*]http://www.usenet2.org/usenet/rules.html (see section titled 'No
binaries: "Usenet is Text"') Use of multipart/signed is mentioned clearly.
--

[Keith Keller]

Post by David Gravereaux
Just wondering, cause some people just don't seem to understand that
their Outlook Express and WLM is broken and has been dating back to
2001, not my MIME (and Usenet) legal posting style.[*]

I think it's pretty annoying, but since there are so few alternatives to
PGP posting I don't complain publicly. But there are many other NNTP
clients, so there's really no excuse to continuing to use OE and their
ilk, no matter whether you PGP-sign your posts or not.

I have modified pgpcontrol (see ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/pgpcontrol/) to
allow me to post signed messages as plain text instead of MIME. I do
not think this will work for Outlook, however. I don't know of any
other good way to sign a post without posting as PGP/MIME (and even this
way of signing is a bit clunky).

Post by David Gravereaux
Can we petition the EFF to sue M$ to fix it?

Yeah, good luck with that one! ;-)

--keith

[David Gravereaux]

Post by Keith Keller
I think it's pretty annoying, but since there are so few alternatives to
PGP posting I don't complain publicly.

Thanks. Too true there. I need to chill before I get myself into flame-on.

This is the form letter I'm suggesting that WLM users post on
http://feedback.live.com

I am calling to your attention a problem with MIME handling related to
multipart/signed (RFC1847/MIME-Encyp) where a signed message that
conforms to the 'OpenPGP Message Format' (RFC4880) does not
display the body of the message when the body Content-Type is
text/plain. The body is incorrectly presented as an attachment with an
invented filename rather than being displayed as per the behavior
described by MIME-Encyp for when an MUA does not support specific
verification method. text/html works, but is of course invalid on
Usenet as shown @ http://www.usenet2.org/usenet/rules.html (see
section titled 'No binaries: "Usenet is Text"'). This bug has existed
since 2001 apparently, while the standards track status of MIME-Encyp
predates that to around 1997.

How's that read?
--

[Vegasbarracuda]

David Gravereaux wrote:
| Keith Keller wrote:
|
|> I think it's pretty annoying, but since there are so few alternatives to
|> PGP posting I don't complain publicly.
|
| Thanks. Too true there. I need to chill before I get myself into
flame-on.
|
| This is the form letter I'm suggesting that WLM users post on
| http://feedback.live.com
|
| I am calling to your attention a problem with MIME handling related to
| multipart/signed (RFC1847/MIME-Encyp) where a signed message that
| conforms to the 'OpenPGP Message Format' (RFC4880) does not
| display the body of the message when the body Content-Type is
| text/plain. The body is incorrectly presented as an attachment with an
| invented filename rather than being displayed as per the behavior
| described by MIME-Encyp for when an MUA does not support specific
| verification method. text/html works, but is of course invalid on
| Usenet as shown @ http://www.usenet2.org/usenet/rules.html (see
| section titled 'No binaries: "Usenet is Text"'). This bug has existed
| since 2001 apparently, while the standards track status of MIME-Encyp
| predates that to around 1997.
|
| How's that read?

I wouldn't waste any time on it, use what works for you. If others don't
like it, SFW. So many systems, so many different levels of expertise. If
people are using Outlook Express what did you expect? Nice x-face by the
way.

[David Gravereaux]

Vegasbarracuda wrote:
...

Post by Vegasbarracuda
I wouldn't waste any time on it, use what works for you. If others don't
like it, SFW. So many systems, so many different levels of expertise. If
people are using Outlook Express what did you expect? Nice x-face by the
way.

Three years ago I felt that way. I passed frustrated eons back.
Standards exist so incompatible problems don't happen. Outlook Express
and Windows Live Mail have a high use rate on Usenet.. some groups more
than others, of course.

I point people to the proper docs, I mention that their MUA is the
problem, I'm not the one sending blank messages, but I'm such the minority.

<tinfoil hat>
It's a conspiracy created by high level Microsoft officers to use their
customers as an additional brute force machine to push their
monopolistic practices in all parts of the markets they saturate to
ensure that their software bugs are deemed as normal behavior
</tinfoil hat>
--

[Jorgen Grahn]

This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156)
--------------enig607DF8A615CD425CB7D4677A
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

I think it's pretty annoying, but since there are so few alternatives t=

o

PGP posting I don't complain publicly.

Thanks. Too true there. I need to chill before I get myself into flame-=
on.
This is the form letter I'm suggesting that WLM users post on
http://feedback.live.com
I am calling to your attention a problem with MIME handling related to
multipart/signed (RFC1847/MIME-Encyp) where a signed message that
conforms to the 'OpenPGP Message Format' (RFC4880) does not
display the body of the message when the body Content-Type is
text/plain. The body is incorrectly presented as an attachment with an
invented filename rather than being displayed as per the behavior
described by MIME-Encyp for when an MUA does not support specific
verification method. text/html works, but is of course invalid on

That document's title is "Usenet II rules". It's not about Usenet at
all. That certainly won't help if you want to be taken seriously.

Russ Allbery's page http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/usefor/ is certainly
more useful. And RFC 5536, the long overdue update to 1036.

/Jorgen