From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 03:17:00 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: "Microsoft.com" added to my KILL file
Message-ID: <ad1555f91102100487cc@[205.199.118.202]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 7:51 AM 1/7/96, Lee Fisher wrote:
>| After getting another batch of bounce messages from Microsoft's
>Postmaster,
>| I have reluctantly decided to filter out all messages from Microsoft.com
>| until they fix this problem with Microsoft Exchange.
>
>I'm not in the Exchange group, not the internal operations group responsible
>for this last error, but I'll try to clarify the two issues raised by this
>thread. (But perhaps this message was pointless, as the folks I'm attempting
>to explain to have already this filtered out by their KILL file?)

I'm reading this, obviously. I use Eudora Pro, a mail program, to filter
messages into various mailboxes, based on key words in the headers. Rather
than immediately trashing messages I wish to filter out, I put them into a
mailbox I've labelled "Kill File." It is, however, just another Eudora
mailbox, and doesn't get emptied unless I explicitly transfer the files
into the "Trash" folder. (And to confuse non-Eudora users further, even my
Trash folder does not get emptied unless and until I explicitly say "Empty
Trash," as I have things configured.) This allows me, when I am bored, to
see what stuff has floated into my Kill File mailbox, and sometimes to even
respond.

My point about filtering out all Microsoft.com addresses was really to make
the point that Microsoft needs to understand--as they seem to be doing,
vis-a-vis their new Internet strategy--that if they want their mail to be
read outside of Microsoft, then they have to conform to certain emergent
standards.

...
>messages are from MSMail and Exchange clients. And while I expect that there
>are some things that our MS Mail and Exchange groups could have done better
>to introduce support for more than just ASCII messages, there is also some
>user education needed (that some forums -- such as mailing lists and
>newsgroups) often aren't the right place to post non-ASCII text like MIME
>attachments and older winmail.dat files.

This is a battle I've been fighting for roughly the past year. When I get a
blank message from someone saying only "attachment converted," I add that
username to my kill file. My feeling is that a mailing list with 1000+
subscribers, or even one with far fewer, is a terrible place to send
non-ASCII messages. Readers will be using VT-100s on campus networks, old
Amiga 1000s, EMACs, Suns, Macs, IBM PCs, Windows, and all sorts of
configurations to read mail, and there is almost no chance that all or even
most of these will be brought up to the latest MIME standards. Plain ASCII,
such as 98% of this list has been for the past several years, is the lingua
franca, the lowest common denominator (see, some number theory relevance
for you purists!) of the Net. There has been little compelling need for
embedded spreadsheets and embedded graphics. And as for attachments, such
as attaching programs for running on a machine, mailing list messages are a
very poor way to distribute such programs, for many reasons.

(Sure, a chicken-egg situation. But most of what people have to say in chat
groups, in Usenet groups, and on mailing lists is of a primarily _prose_
nature...few of us would be willing to prepare line drawings, graphs,
spreadsheets, etc., for casual posts. My hunch is that if a fully
graphics-supportive mailing list were to emerge, most people would not
generate _new_ graphics for each post (such as graphs to make a point) but
would simply clutter up their posts with cutesy logos, pictures of their
cats, etc.).)

--Tim May

We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1  | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."