Less Flaming, More Civility

Folks, the level of flaming and gratuitous insulting (insultations?)
is getting in the way of our message.

We have on our list folks from Netscape, First Virtual, and (maybe)
Digicash. Amongst others. And we certainly know that some of our
messages are being forwarded to others.

It behooves us to bear this in mind. If we can't calmly and clearly
make our points about why privacy is important (and I mean in the
sense of personal responsibility, not just the buzzword), about why
end-to-end encryption is generally better than transport-level
security, and about why "certifying authorities" is (to many of us) a
flawed approach, then we are failing.

More concisely, the Cypherpunks list is one of several "watering
holes" that have appeared. Rather than trashing schemes which are not
"'punkly correct" (PC, to coin a term), or which seem to have been put
together in haste (perhaps for good reason)), we should instead use
this golden opportunity to influence things.

Call me an elitist, but I think the Cypherpunks list has an important
role to play in influencing:

-- Web development (Netscape, InterCon, others)

-- digital cash (DigiCash, First Virtual, others)

-- key escrow policies and plans (TIS, Microsoft, etc.)

-- the future of PGP, tools, etc.

-- etc.

These things will have more of an effect on the future than convincing
Aunt Erma to encrypt her mail.

It may be that the comments made here about the security model of
Netscape and First Virtual are on the mark, that these models need a
lot more work. But I don't know see how insults or derision, or
imputing bad motives to these folks, will help. (I think I was careful
this past motive to avoid slinging mud at Bill Gates, for example,
during the debate about reports that Microsoft could be including some
form of key escrow in future OS releases. Not to say I've never
flamed...)

One lesson that's become clear is to expect that derisive comments
made here will often find their way back to those derided. I always
write with the expectation that folks as disparate as David Chaum and
Dorothy Denning will perhaps be reading my words! (Hi, David! Hi,
Dotty!) They may read them because someone forwards the messages to
them, or because in 1996 the Cypherpunks list is sold on CD-ROM, or
because one of them has access to the main NSA search engines (:-}).
Whatever, my point is that insults are rarely helpful, and are
unpersuasive. Insults also set a tone for later debate that is hard to
get beyond.

Not all debate recently has been insulting, of course. In fact, most
hasn't been. But the insulting tone persists in some of the thread
titles, and in the generally adversarial nature. (If I were Marc A.
or Kipp, I'd not feel very welcome here....a situation which is
counterproductive to our presumed goals.)

Hal Finney nicely summarized why folks want some privacy on Web pages,
and why transport-level security is generally less desirable than
end-to-end security (including the special case of anonymous
origination). This is the usual "who do you trust?" motif, which comes
up in mail delivery _and_ in key certification. 

(Sidebar: In my view, Web browsers like Netscape and Mosaic, etc.,
should not get overly involved in these issues. These are issues
for Web page owners to worry about and set policy on. The browsers may
want the right hooks in them to allow authentication policies to be
implemented, but the browser-makers should probably stay out of the gory
details of which crypto algorithms are used, what access policies are
set, etc. This makes it easier to drop-in stronger systems at a later
time. I may be misunderstanding plans, I admit.)

So, this is my little rant on "Can't we all just get along?" expressed
in a different way.

The Cypherpunks list has become one of several de facto "watering
holes" where diverse participants interact. Let's not blow it.


--Tim May

-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: 
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay

A minor correction, when I wrote:


> It may be that the comments made here about the security model of
> Netscape and First Virtual are on the mark, that these models need a
> lot more work. But I don't know see how insults or derision, or
> imputing bad motives to these folks, will help. (I think I was careful
> this past motive to avoid slinging mud at Bill Gates, for example,
            ^^^^^^
> during the debate about reports that Microsoft could be including some
> form of key escrow in future OS releases. Not to say I've never
> flamed...)

I meant to say "this past summer."

--Tim


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: 
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay

XX\\

On Wed, 14 Dec 1994, Timothy C. May wrote:

> 
> A minor correction, when I wrote:
> 
> 
> > It may be that the comments made here about the security model of
> > Netscape and First Virtual are on the mark, that these models need a
> > lot more work. But I don't know see how insults or derision, or
> > imputing bad motives to these folks, will help. (I think I was careful
> > this past motive to avoid slinging mud at Bill Gates, for example,
>             ^^^^^^
> > during the debate about reports that Microsoft could be including some
> > form of key escrow in future OS releases. Not to say I've never
> > flamed...)
> 
> I meant to say "this past summer."
> 
> --Tim
> 
> 
> -- 
> .........................................................................

$W\)27!UU\WP,Hc)l(>b^S/lU
tsᰰU][}l5pTMɪ>>b^S/lU
\H-$pGE8I3 Ja,1g Lx7QI5l
⶿
E]VK^mrkR

Peter F Cassidy wrote:
> 
> rgnKxSRXXCmixjI3IVVVXFdQsCxIYylsKLrmrdU+s2Jes6X8v1MvwWzvVQ0K
> qnRz4bCwVV3xW8J9bDVw9qizVMxNyarXPug+s2Jes6X8v1MvwWzvVQ0K5Njz
> 3fJc69ra+75I8c3WLbTBJHBHRec400kzIEphLDFn2iCsTLp4N1FJNd5sDQri
> tr/2DQpFXaTbVqpLXm1yumvm8FI=
> 

This was one of those "MIME" things I got, that tell me to "Hit any
key to go on," "Now press ^H-Alt-Hyper-Abort to return to the main
menu."


Did I miss something here?

This is not a flame, but there sure has been an increase in the
frequency of this strange MIME messages lately. (At least with the
practical demise of NeXT, I've been seeing fewer and fewer of those
"NewGrazer" (?) messages.)

--Tim May

-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: 
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay

tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) writes:
[...]
> This is not a flame, but there sure has been an increase in the
> frequency of this strange MIME messages lately.

Probably because that is the direction mail is going.  If you can't do it
too bad, but don't expect everyone else to wait around for you to catch
up. Time to move your mail into the early 90s and get a MIME-aware mail
agent... 

jim

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Jim McCoy writes:
> tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) writes:
> [...]
> > This is not a flame, but there sure has been an increase in the
> > frequency of this strange MIME messages lately.
> 
> Probably because that is the direction mail is going.  If you can't do it
> too bad, but don't expect everyone else to wait around for you to catch
> up. Time to move your mail into the early 90s and get a MIME-aware mail
> agent... 

I'm using a version of ELM which claims to be MIME-compliant and usually is,
but all I saw in Peter Cassidy's message was a collection of random-looking
extended-ASCII characters. Usually when something arrives in a locally-
unsupported MIME format (like Amanda's GIF a while back), I just get an
"unrecognized format" error message. I didn't see any error messages at all
this time, just a meaningless jumble of characters (different, incidentally,
from the PGP-cipherptext-like characters Tim quoted).

We have enough dumb flamewars raging on this list right now; let's not
revive an old one.

- -L. Futplex McCarthy; PGP key by finger or server   "The objective is for us 
to get those conversations whether they're by an alligator clip or ones and 
zeroes. Wherever they are, whatever they are, I need them." --FBI Dir. Freeh

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.1

iQCVAwUBLu9u4Wf7YYibNzjpAQEUBwP/fwjNOFefKF+fpNnBGyAaU8nOFuLMABuq
dj/NUMLR7ZrEi7k7HMPNl5F+RyERGOVemWmowh0ZNHy9uVkNk5OtriptbnQCQDWl
hEv7Vn+K9PfAy0kLUFLYzY1kUQbgQFHzr5npLgfqQ6S4PBVtAdIJyHcKv4RgCNMM
0cCaMVM1r5M=
=+lPD
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

on Wed, 14 Dec 1994 15:56:52 -0600 (CST)  mccoy@io.com wrote:
> tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) writes:
> [...]
> > This is not a flame, but there sure has been an increase in the
> > frequency of this strange MIME messages lately.
> 
> Probably because that is the direction mail is going.  If you can't do it
> too bad, but don't expect everyone else to wait around for you to catch
> up. Time to move your mail into the early 90s and get a MIME-aware mail
> agent... 

This IS a flame.

It must be nice to be a sysadmin of a net where you have the time to run
around and make sure all your users have access to MIME-aware mail agents.
I only manage 50 users on three flavors of U*NX using 5 different terminal
emulators, and just can't seem to find the time.

Maybe I can talk the tax-payers of CA into paying me overtime to do this.
Gee I'm really sorry I couldn't add a graphic to this message.  I guess us
neanderthals just don't have it together.

BTW, with your superior sense of technology, I'm quite shocked at the lack
of signature on your missive.

       Dave Otto -- dave@marvin.jta.edd.ca.gov -- daveotto@acm.org
   "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"     [the Great Oz]
     finger DaveOtto@ACM.org/or server for PGP 2.6 key  <0x3300e841>
     fingerprint =  78 71 3A 5B FD 8A 9A F1  8F BC E8 6A C7 BD A4 DD

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2

iQCVAwUBLu9wEyuceIAzAOhBAQFzKwP/ZMEIA9IBkEtDK0Tf2TAdS7U+IlX2XN19
jmZxnejpzf/t2zxKc3cEQ9C1VRt7UjVbCYehAjoW9hCycnxLVrlN1+HX9i2oVu4h
V338Hfk8RjGX8VcNtI0OrpmJ4LV71IqFNA3vS7QbRWD8qJXIYKYxJXI9OVVSct2E
e27rnsNzEO8=
=+RaW
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Wed, 14 Dec 1994, Jim McCoy wrote:

> Probably because that is the direction mail is going.  If you can't do it
> too bad, but don't expect everyone else to wait around for you to catch
> up. Time to move your mail into the early 90s and get a MIME-aware mail
> agent... 

But if you are not including an enhanced attachment i.e. binary file, why
not just send it as a standard mail message?  MIME messages are difficult
at best to forward, for example.


-NetSurfer

#include <standard.disclaimer>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
==  =     = |James D. Wilson        |V.PGP 2.7:   512/E12FCD 1994/03/17 >
 "  "  o  " |P. O. Box 15432        |     finger for full PGP key        >
 "  " / \ " |Honolulu, HI  96830    |====================================>
\"  "/ G \" |Serendipitous Solutions|    Also NetSurfer@sersol.com      >
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Notice: MPEG-II Video Mail Attached: Quicktime 2.1-compatible. This
messages has been formatted as a HyperMIME document. Do not attempt to
read it on a non-HyperMIME-compliant system.


ASCII-only portion--hit "n" to download the MPEG-II attachment, hit
"^&-D" to stop the automatic transfer which has already begun, hit
"##23" to receive a QuarkExpress document describing how to use
HyperMIME. If you see garbage characters below, in the ASCII portion
of this message, it means you are not on the bleeding edge of
technology.

Fij4@Jim McCoy 89g1~wroteiio900deW:

ASCII Excerpt> tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) writes:
ASCII Excerpt> [...]
ASCII Excerpt> > This is not a flame, but there sure has been an increase in the
ASCII Excerpt> > frequency of this strange MIME messages lately.
ASCII Excerpt> 
ASCII Excerpt> Probably because that is the direction mail is going.  If you can't do it
ASCII Excerpt> too bad, but don't expect everyone else to wait around for you to catch
ASCII Excerpt> up. Time to move your mail into the early 90s and get a MIME-aware mail
ASCII Excerpt> agent... 
ASCII Excerpt> 
ASCII Excerpt> jim

FG00998Thanks, Jim, I think you're right. This parochial dependency on archaic things like ASCII and the sentimental attachment we have to 80-column displays is keeping us from advancing. 

(You'll know you're stuck in the 80-column swamp if the quoted message above overran your display...me, I am switching to a 120-column mode
soon, and may adopt a 1280 x 1024 dual column format for all of my messages. If you can't read it, time to move your mail into the early 90s!

NOTICE: The JPEG-II movie that accompanies this message has been
installed in your root directory. It can be viewed with the
HyperMIMEPlayer software, version 1.04 (but don't use 1.03 or earlier,
as that will crash your system!).

The .WAV files can be listened to with version 4.2 or later MIMEaural
players.

The Singularity is approaching...soon we'll be changing our system
software every few days to keep up with the incompatible messages
being sent. I love it.


[Tim May's ASCII sig has been replaced by a more modern Postscript
version, which was downloaded while you were reading this message and
sent directly to your laser printer. All part of HyperMIME making
your life easier.]

In article <199412150210.SAA05624@netcom7.netcom.com>, you wrote:
>
> Notice: MPEG-II Video Mail Attached: Quicktime 2.1-compatible. This
> messages has been formatted as a HyperMIME document. Do not attempt to
> read it on a non-HyperMIME-compliant system.

<ROTFLMAO>

Thanks Tim, I needed that!

And thanks also for your insightful, albeit less humorous, posts.

-rex

PS, just read of your intended departure. Please don't. The list really
needs your viewpoint. There are some vocal, abusive, elitists on the
list who (IMO) haven't a clue how many people are stuck with less than
bleeding edge software, no SLIP access, etc. Without some counterpoint 
they may totally lose contact with the rest of us.

Timothy C. May says:
> 
> Notice: MPEG-II Video Mail Attached: Quicktime 2.1-compatible. This
> messages has been formatted as a HyperMIME document. Do not attempt to
> read it on a non-HyperMIME-compliant system.

You know Tim, I agree with you. This newfangled technology stuff is
just too hard to deal with. Multimedia email is an obvious dead
end. I'd suggest that we all move back to paper and pencil -- thats a
simple common denominator that we all are capable of managing.

In fact, we all ought to just gather about in our stone cave around
the fire and chat about this in person -- its friendlier that way.

Perry 

Who still remembers telling people who thought that dealing with
the NCP to TCP transition was too hard and is suprised to note that
there are no more NCP hosts around. Who still remembers the terror in
the eyes of floundering mainframe programmers realizing that they
might have to learn something other than COBOL if they wanted to keep
working for more than minimum wage.

Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> Timothy C. May says:
> > 
> > Notice: MPEG-II Video Mail Attached: Quicktime 2.1-compatible. This
> > messages has been formatted as a HyperMIME document. Do not attempt to
> > read it on a non-HyperMIME-compliant system.
> 
> You know Tim, I agree with you. This newfangled technology stuff is
> just too hard to deal with. Multimedia email is an obvious dead
> end. I'd suggest that we all move back to paper and pencil -- thats a
> simple common denominator that we all are capable of managing.
> 
> In fact, we all ought to just gather about in our stone cave around
> the fire and chat about this in person -- its friendlier that way.

I see two "stable attractors" for text/graphics/multimedia/etc. sent
over the Net:

1. Straight text, ASCII, 80 column format. All systems can handle
this, all mailers and newsreaders can handle it, it's what the Usenet
is essentially based upon, and it gets the job done. It meets the
needs of 95% of us for 95% of our needs.

2. The Web, for graphics, images, etc. This will be the next main
stable attractor, deployed on many platforms. (I'm assuming the debate
here about Netscape standards does not imply much of a fragmentation,
that Mosaic, Netscape, MacWeb, etc., will all basically be able to
display Web pages in much the same way.)

I'm not arguing against technology, as Perry surely knows. I used
FrameMaker 4.02 for my Monte Carlo paper, prettified with nice fonts
and printed in 2-column format. I am willing to supply a "FrameViewer"
version to this list, if there's enough interest. Other standards I
have to deal with are Replica and Acrobat (my Smalltalk vendor likes
these), Postscript versions, and the usual assortment of
semi-proprietary standards for PhotoShop, Painter, MORE, and so on.

The issue is not unwillingness to use new technology, it is, rather,
the issue of "stable attractors." That is, what can I/we reasonably
expect others to also have. Clearly if I issued my paper to the list
in FrameMaker format, or Acrobat format, or even TeX format, only a
few people would be able to read it. Fewer still would actually take
the steps needed to actually display the paper.

Standards, standards, standards!

I don't think the minor extensions to e-mail (loosely called "MIME,"
though MIME serves other functions besides attaching graphics) are
worth the effort, frankly. Most of the MIME messages (the ones that
tell me about "ISO 558972 fonts" and "Press any key to return") don't
seem to warrant the effort....I think in 90%+ of the cases people
simply send messages as MIME by default, not becuase non-ASCII stuff
is included.

If we make the leap, I say make the leap to the Web:

cave drawings --> text --> e-mail --> Web

(By Web I of course mean the whole ball of wax involving HTML/HTTP/etc.)

This is not a rejection of new technology, just a wise selection of
which technology to bet on.

--Tim May





-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: 
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay

I want to add something to what I just sent out, something of direct
relevance for PGP efforts:

> I see two "stable attractors" for text/graphics/multimedia/etc. sent
> over the Net:
> 
> 1. Straight text, ASCII, 80 column format. All systems can handle
> this, all mailers and newsreaders can handle it, it's what the Usenet
> is essentially based upon, and it gets the job done. It meets the
> needs of 95% of us for 95% of our needs.
> 
> 2. The Web, for graphics, images, etc. This will be the next main
> stable attractor, deployed on many platforms. (I'm assuming the debate
> here about Netscape standards does not imply much of a fragmentation,
> that Mosaic, Netscape, MacWeb, etc., will all basically be able to
> display Web pages in much the same way.)

And these two attractors are where the efforts on encryption have the
biggest pay-offs. We already know that PGP is "text"-oriented, and
that PGP messages can be read on a variety of machines, from terminal
to DOS to Macs to Suns, etc. PGP is well-suited to a straight text
world, as it makes no assumptions about non-ASCII capabilitites.
(Using the ASCII-armor mode that most of us use.)

It is when assumptions are made by programs, think of "Lotus Notes" or
"DECMail," that interoperability is lost. 

The Lesson: Beware of making any assumptions about MIME sorts of
extensions to use with PGP, as many people will--for whatever
reasons--not be able or willing to process MIME mail.

The Web is where I think a lot of future efforts on integrating PGP in
should happen. (I'm speaking of when the Web is used to send e-mail,
which I hear is being worked on by many groups; clearly a lot of
Netscape/Mosaic/etc. users expect to use these products as their main
interface to the Net, and not have to have separate mail programs.)

This is where I would put my money.

--Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: 
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay

Timothy C. May says:
> I see two "stable attractors" for text/graphics/multimedia/etc. sent
> over the Net:
> 
> 1. Straight text, ASCII, 80 column format. All systems can handle
> this, all mailers and newsreaders can handle it, it's what the Usenet
> is essentially based upon, and it gets the job done.

Sorry, Tim, but this isn't true. I know people who still own VIC-20s
that can't handle 80 columns. Also, users of ASR-33 teletypes might be
left out by the requirement to handle full ASCII. I was using an
ASR-33 full time only 15 years ago.

Now, I know that all usenet postings in Japan these days use ISO-2022
encoded characters, and MIME and all that, and that people in Russia
use similar methods to carry their stuff, but they are just
bounders. I say its back to 38 columns and upper-case only Baudot in
order to meet the lowest common denominator.

> 2. The Web, for graphics, images, etc. This will be the next main
> stable attractor, deployed on many platforms. (I'm assuming the debate
> here about Netscape standards does not imply much of a fragmentation,
> that Mosaic, Netscape, MacWeb, etc., will all basically be able to
> display Web pages in much the same way.)

And of course there are no MIME standards; its physically impossible
to deploy MIME on two different platforms identically. Why, the
specifications are all written in english, and we know no engineers
can read! I can see why you would reject MIME so vehemently.

> The issue is not unwillingness to use new technology, it is, rather,
> the issue of "stable attractors."

I see.

> I don't think the minor extensions to e-mail (loosely called "MIME,"
> though MIME serves other functions besides attaching graphics) are
> worth the effort, frankly. Most of the MIME messages (the ones that
> tell me about "ISO 558972 fonts" and "Press any key to return") don't
> seem to warrant the effort....

Lets get down to serious issues for a moment.

Because you've got a shitty MIME reader, you've concluded that the
technology is bad. Thats all it comes down to.

MIME allows fully multimedia in the style of the Web, you know. You
can't say that the Web is good and consistantly call MIME bad. If you
want to see what a difference implementation makes, try using a
text-based Web browser for a few hours and then compare it to Netscape.

If you'd ever used NeXTMail, you'd understand why MIME is a good
thing. Just because you are using a kludgy reader doesn't mean MIME is
kludgy.

Perry

Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> Timothy C. May says:
> > I see two "stable attractors" for text/graphics/multimedia/etc. sent
> > over the Net:
> > 
> > 1. Straight text, ASCII, 80 column format. All systems can handle
> > this, all mailers and newsreaders can handle it, it's what the Usenet
> > is essentially based upon, and it gets the job done.
> 
> Sorry, Tim, but this isn't true. I know people who still own VIC-20s
> that can't handle 80 columns. Also, users of ASR-33 teletypes might be
> left out by the requirement to handle full ASCII. I was using an
> ASR-33 full time only 15 years ago.

But this isn't 15 years ago, and I daresay there isn't a _single_
subscriber to the Cypherpunks list using a VIC-20 or anything remotely
similar. Of the 600 or so subscribers, and certainly of the 100-200
involved posters, I would bet that essentially all of them can display
ASCII text on an 80-column screen. (I won't get into a Scholastic
argument about what "all" means, as in "all systems can handle this,"
especially as in my message I later said "95%," but clearly 80-column
ASCII is nearly universal these days. Not 15 years ago, perhaps, but
this is now.)

> Now, I know that all usenet postings in Japan these days use ISO-2022
> encoded characters, and MIME and all that, and that people in Russia
> use similar methods to carry their stuff, but they are just
> bounders. I say its back to 38 columns and upper-case only Baudot in
> order to meet the lowest common denominator.

You are once again misrepresenting my points. I said no such thing.

> And of course there are no MIME standards; its physically impossible
> to deploy MIME on two different platforms identically. Why, the
> specifications are all written in english, and we know no engineers
> can read! I can see why you would reject MIME so vehemently.

I said no such thing, so your sarcasm is wasted.

> > The issue is not unwillingness to use new technology, it is, rather,
> > the issue of "stable attractors."
> 
> I see.

Do you? You seemed to have read into my message what you wished to,
that I was making some argument for going backward, as this has been
the thrust of your sarcasm. I made no such point.

There's no point in arguing this any further.

--Tim May

-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: 
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay

The point, Tim, is that you keep conflating a bad MIME read that you
happen to use with the notion that MIME is bad. MIME doesn't force its
users to understand anything about formats, character sets or anything
else. Your mail reader is whats doing that. If you were, say, using
the Andrew Messaging System which now understands MIME, you could
remain blissfully ignorant the whole time of how the underpinnings
work.

.pm

Perry E. Metzger writes
> The point, Tim, is that you keep conflating a bad MIME read that you
> happen to use with the notion that MIME is bad.

No two mimes seem to entirely agree what mime format is.

I use Sun's stuff.  It is a pile of stinking shit.

This a new spark station 20, state of the art and all
that.

Sure, mime would be great if everyone had a great Mime
and every diverse system with every diverse mime
interpreter all worked and they all worked in the same
way.

This is not the case.

-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our
property, because of the kind of animals that we        James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.            jamesd@netcom.com

James A. Donald says:
> Perry E. Metzger writes
> > The point, Tim, is that you keep conflating a bad MIME reader that you
> > happen to use with the notion that MIME is bad.
> 
> No two mimes seem to entirely agree what mime format is.

Well, the specification is pretty clear. Its pretty simple stuff,
actually, and remarkably well designed.

> I use Sun's stuff.  It is a pile of stinking shit.

When last I checked, Sun's "Mailtool" did not support MIME, but
supported a proprietary enclosure format. (This may have changed in
the Openwindows supplied with 2.4, but to my knowledge 2.4 only came
out weeks ago and it is unlikely that you are using it.)

Perry

James A. Donald says:
> > No two mimes seem to entirely agree what mime format is.

Perry E. Metzger writes
> Well, the specification is pretty clear. Its pretty simple stuff,
> actually, and remarkably well designed.

Quite true.

But the technology has not achieved the critical mass that you
need for most software producers to support it properly.

Sun does not support it, Microsoft screws it up royally last
time I looked.

Thus mime is, as Tim earlier complained, bleeding edge.

Netscape is leading edge.

Obviously mime is the right solution for Email in the
long run.

Equally obviously, none of the tools that I prefer to
use, on any of the systems that I have connected to
the internet, handle mime in a way that I am willing
to tolerate.



-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our
property, because of the kind of animals that we        James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.            jamesd@netcom.com

James A. Donald says:
> Thus mime is, as Tim earlier complained, bleeding edge.
> 
> Netscape is leading edge.

Please note that MIME is an encapsulation methodology -- ZMail,
Eudora, AMS and others are implementations.

Netscape is an implementation. HTML and HTTP are the things that it
implements (along with some other protocols).

Just keep in mind the distinction between a standard and the
implementations of that standard -- they are different.


Perry

On Thu, 15 Dec 1994, James A. Donald wrote:

> Perry E. Metzger writes
> > The point, Tim, is that you keep conflating a bad MIME read that you
> > happen to use with the notion that MIME is bad.
> 
> No two mimes seem to entirely agree what mime format is.
> 
> I use Sun's stuff.  It is a pile of stinking shit.
> 
> Sure, mime would be great if everyone had a great Mime
> and every diverse system with every diverse mime
> interpreter all worked and they all worked in the same
> way.
> 

There is only ONE MIME - it's in the rfc (I've forgotten the number). If 
it's the same as the rfc - it's MIME. if it ain't then it aint MIME.

The sun stuff is a good example of how bad it can get. But it's not MIME. not 
mailtool anyway. It is a stinking pile of [insert expletive here]. But it's
not MIME. 

-Jon

--
  j.fletcher@stirling.ac.uk
  "opinions are my own. not necessarily those of anyone or aything else"

On Fri, 16 Dec 1994, Jonathon Fletcher wrote:
> 
> There is only ONE MIME - it's in the rfc (I've forgotten the number). If 
> it's the same as the rfc - it's MIME. if it ain't then it aint MIME.
> 
> The sun stuff is a good example of how bad it can get. But it's not MIME. not 
> mailtool anyway. It is a stinking pile of [insert expletive here]. But it's
> not MIME. 

So how can I do true graphical mime with the wondrous window
like drag and drop features described by Perry on a 
Sparc 20 or an IBM PC running sockets and TIA under windows?

Obviously, once you can drag and drop from html to mime and back
again, and PGP is properly mimed, then we will have a tool
such that even the chairman of the board will use PGP.
But right now the tools I have are
seriously short of this glorious goal

While I am not expecting crypto nirvana right away I would like to stop
using an interface originally designed for paper terminals where you had
to hit the keys with a five pound hammer.  Obviously, once you can drag
and drop from html to mime and back The reason that I joined the rant
against the latest progress is not because I am a fan of character mode
unix -- I most definitely am not -- but because tools for GUI internet
stuff were rather raw the last time I tried them.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our
property, because of the kind of animals that we        James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.            jamesd@netcom.com

"James A. Donald" says:
> 
> So how can I do true graphical mime with the wondrous window
> like drag and drop features described by Perry on a 
> Sparc 20

The mail handler that comes with the Andrew package does do the
graphics inline. You can just FTP it and compile it for your
machine. I don't know if it does drag and drop.

There is a commercial product called Zmail that is pretty good and
handles all the drag and drop (motif style) that you would want -- it
doesn't do the graphics inline, though -- it spawns new windows to
show the images. I understand you can get demos by FTP from the
company.

> Obviously, once you can drag and drop from html to mime and back
> again, and PGP is properly mimed, then we will have a tool
> such that even the chairman of the board will use PGP.

Well, people will first have to incorporate the new Security
Multiparts stuff into their MIME implementations -- its brand new
(just approved a week ago) so I suspect that it will take a bit of
time. 

Perry

As Perry is actually making some points without sarcasm (*) and
without demonizing me as some Neanderthal bent on converting the list
to a 20-column, all caps past, I'll respond:

Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> The point, Tim, is that you keep conflating a bad MIME read that you
> happen to use with the notion that MIME is bad. MIME doesn't force its
> users to understand anything about formats, character sets or anything
> else. Your mail reader is whats doing that. If you were, say, using
> the Andrew Messaging System which now understands MIME, you could
> remain blissfully ignorant the whole time of how the underpinnings
> work.

Perhaps, but I don't have the Andrew Messaging System, nor do I expect
most of the subscribers here. I see lots of AOL, Compuserve, Portal,
Netcom, etc., accounts, and the range of mailers available to (most)
of them does not include the AMS or similar things.

I deeply resent--but will try not to take it personally, so no
animosity to Perry or Jim or others is intended--the insinuation
through sarcasm or through direct statements that I am hopelessly
wedded to a past of ASR-33 terminals and good old-fashioned
typewriters. Like a lot of folks here, I use stuff that's far beyond
simple ASCII. I think I've adequately covered this point.

Eric Hughes wrote a nice piece several weeks back about adoption of
new technology, new tools all being a matter of _return on
investment_. 

For example, I could spend some number of hours switching from my
current mail progam (elm) to some other editor which perhaps
better-supported the MIME messages seen here. But if all I got for
several hours of using, learning, and becoming comfortable with, say,
"pine," was the ability to see an _italicized_ word, or a word in
Cyrillic, then I would consider this a poor ROI.

And nobody has yet said there's anything worth doing this for in any
of the MIME messages I've yet seen. Sure, Amanda W. exercised the
process by including a GIF....a process which several people saw
errors with, and no doubt many others skipped completely.

Does this make me backward? No. It's all ROI. 

Like it or not, we are now in a mostly-ASCII Net environment. This
shows up when people fail to convert special characters (apostrophes,
left and right quotes, em dashes, bullets, etc.) into the "straight
ASCII" characters (such as ', ", --, *) that most of the rest of us
can display easily. People right complain about posts and messages
filled with "^H" and other oddball symbols.

(And it certainly doesn't mean that people like me don't have the
capability of displaying extended character sets....I clearly can,
given the right tools, effort, etc. Many can't, and many won't. The
"Display Postscript" standard was an attempt to bootstrap the world to
a new standard for document display, and it failed. Maybe the "Andrew
Message System" is another such fix. Maybe it's even better designed.
All well and good. But it ain't available to most of us. Nor would I
even install it if all I got was em dashes and the like displayed
correctly. ROI, again.)

Please don't characterize my views as Luddite wishes for a simpler
world. 

--Tim May









-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: 
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay

Timothy C. May says:
> For example, I could spend some number of hours switching from my
> current mail progam (elm) to some other editor which perhaps
> better-supported the MIME messages seen here. But if all I got for
> several hours of using, learning, and becoming comfortable with, say,
> "pine," was the ability to see an _italicized_ word, or a word in
> Cyrillic, then I would consider this a poor ROI.

You misunderstand the purpose of MIME. It is a way of standardizing
the encapsulation of non-ascii information and references inside of an
RFC-822 mail message. It allows you to do things like get cyrillic or
what have you, but more importantly, it allows things like recursive
encapsulation of your messages inside encrypting transformations, the
transmission of attachments allong with documents, mailing HTML,
embedding external references in mail (i.e. "Click here to get a copy
of my latest program) and dozens of other significant things. MIME and
HTML are complementary to each other -- HTTP is one way of
transporting HTML, but with MIME you can see a Web page, cut it out,
paste it into your MIME aware gee-whiz mailer, and send it to someone
who could then treat it just like he was looking at the Web, provided
he, too, had a good enough MIME capable reader. You could send out
your latest document, in parallel, in postscript and in Word format
(or whatever) so that lots of people could read it and prepend an
explanatory document describing what the contents were -- some MIME
readers will then display the attachment as an icon that you could
then drag and drop into an appropriate viewer or printer.

MIME is a general infrastructural mechanism for this and more. Its a
bit of a toy right now on mailing lists because too many people lack
MIME capable readers, but in environments where MIME is universally
used it has already taken over and is a fundamental part of the way
people do business. Once you've seen a secretary who barely
understands anything drag a spreadsheet into a mail message and send
it to someone on another continent who, equally ignorantly, just
double-clicks on it and then has the spreadsheet program launch, you
will understand what the point of MIME is.

Without a MIME capable reader you can't do any of these things, of
course. Even with one, you might not initially see any benefits
because you might be using a mediocre reader or you might not have any
correspondants who do snazzy things. However, MIME is rapidly being
deployed and is going to be universal within a couple of years. Its
not just a silly way to sign your name with a GIF.

> Like it or not, we are now in a mostly-ASCII Net environment.

We are in a mostly graphical net environment. Its been seven years
since I used a machine (for more than a few minutes) that didn't have
a bitmapped display. The Macintosh you are sitting in front of right
now knows nothing about ASCII -- its a bitmapped display, not a
character generator based display, and it can show whatever font you
like.

What you are actually saying is that you use a primitive interface
into your network service provider rather than, say, SLIP or PPP, and
that because of this you are restricted to dumb-terminal type
operations on a computer that is far more capable than that.

Were I you, I'd get PPP account from Netcom and a POP based mailer to
handle your mail reading directly on your Mac. You will no longer have
to bitch about downloading your mail to the mac to decrypt it -- you
will be able to just drag and drop mail into PGP with the right
tools. You won't have to worry about MIME with the right package, either.

> The "Display Postscript" standard was an attempt to bootstrap the
> world to a new standard for document display, and it failed.

Display postscript was for windowing systems. It had nothing to do
with document displays per se. I can view postscript just as easily
here on my workstation as ASCII. Display postscript was not a document
viewer technology but a way of building things like NeXTStep, which
did indeed fail -- but thats because X won, and X is in wide use.

Perry

I actuallly sympathize with Tim's position and Eric's
earlier comments about adopting tools as as function of
ROI. I often experience somethign similar wiht "potentially 
faster but non-deterministic time solutions," vs. "probably 
slower but deterministic time solutions." 

That said, I think that MIME, for all its implementation
difficulties, is going to be an attractor, if for no other 
reason that the fact that there is an increasing demand for 
_something_ to encapsulate all the divergent stuff that 
people want to push and pull across the net, and MIME is 
the standard for doing this. For instance, it is used to 
encasulate html, and some advocate an expansion of its use 
in conjunction with the web. 

[Note that this does not make the various cock-ups that can 
occur in conjuction with its expanding use in e-mail any less 
annoying.]

I'm also curious what James is using on his Sun, as Sun's 
mailtool (at least the version I have) is pre-MIME, but 
MIME-ish, and can choke in amusing ways on MIME messages.

Doug

tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) wrote:
[...]
> I see two "stable attractors" for text/graphics/multimedia/etc. sent
> over the Net:
[1. ASCII text, proving once and for all that Tim has never had to do any
significant work with cross-OS networking or managing a heterogeneous
LAN...]
>
> 2. The Web, for graphics, images, etc. [...]

Hmmm... and what kind of protocol does HTTP use for structuring the
messages it passes from the server to the client....   RTFM Tim.

> I don't think the minor extensions to e-mail (loosely called "MIME,"
> though MIME serves other functions besides attaching graphics) are
> worth the effort, frankly. Most of the MIME messages (the ones that
> tell me about "ISO 558972 fonts" and "Press any key to return") don't
> seem to warrant the effort....I think in 90%+ of the cases people
> simply send messages as MIME by default, not becuase non-ASCII stuff
> is included.

You should try spending some time working with mail crossing multiple
gateways running different OSs and even different character sets [an
EBCDIC<->ASCII cross is particularly fun...]  The fact is that there are a
variety of different commercial systems out there and they all seem to want
to speak thier own language.  MIME provides a means of seperating the
message itself from the method and systems used to transport that message.
A mail message is the most basic form of communication structure that is
commonly used on the net.  News is just an extension of the mail message,
MIME is another extension of the message, but in a different direction.  It
seperates the message from the program that created it.

ObCrypto:  Without MIME crypto will never have the unification we seek.
With the MIME message format it is possible to put together a mail message
that will not be mangled by passing through several different gateways or
other network boundary objects, and it allows the message to bundle itself
up into functional parts.  It allows one to seperate the signature from the
message if you want, or create an encrypted message that can pass from a PC
running on a Microsoft Mail system across the net to a Amiga that downloads
it off a Fido BBS without the end-users needing to worry about what path it
took and what kind of changes may have been made upon the message during
transport. 

On this particular subject you just haven't got a fucking clue what you are
talking about Tim.

jim

Jim McCoy wrote:

> On this particular subject you just haven't got a fucking clue what you are
> talking about Tim.

So polite, so succinct.

I'll remember this.

--Tim


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: 
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay

Tim wrote:
> Jim McCoy wrote:
> > On this particular subject you just haven't got a fucking clue what you are
> > talking about Tim.
> 
> So polite, so succinct.
>
> I'll remember this.

Please do.  There are a great many issues which your input and opinions are
a valuable contribution to the content of this list.  There are others
where you seem to make guesses as to where things are going without having
much of a leg to stand on.  Your MIME position hurts the widespread use of
cryptography because the advantages MIME gives to crypto far outweigh the
short-term costs associated with a systemic upgrade to a better method for
message transport and encapsulation.

jim

> 
> Tim wrote:
> > Jim McCoy wrote:
> > > On this particular subject you just haven't got a fucking clue what you are
> > > talking about Tim.
> > 
> > So polite, so succinct.
> >
> > I'll remember this.
> 
> Please do.  There are a great many issues which your input and opinions are
> a valuable contribution to the content of this list.  There are others
> where you seem to make guesses as to where things are going without having
> much of a leg to stand on.  Your MIME position hurts the widespread use of
> cryptography because the advantages MIME gives to crypto far outweigh the
> short-term costs associated with a systemic upgrade to a better method for
> message transport and encapsulation.
> 
> jim

People should learn when to yield sometimes....  

sdw
-- 
Stephen D. Williams    25Feb1965 VW,OH      sdw@lig.net http://www.lig.net/~sdw
Senior Consultant      510.503.9227 CA Page 513.496.5223 OH Page BA Aug94-Dec95
OO R&D AI:NN/ES crypto     By Buggy: 2464 Rosina Dr., Miamisburg, OH 45342-6430
Firewalls/WWW servers ICBM: 39 38 34N 84 17 12W home, 37 58 41N 122 01 48W work
Pres.: Concinnous Consulting,Inc.;SDW Systems;Local Internet Gateway Co.29Nov94

On Thu, 15 Dec 1994, Timothy C. May wrote:
> 
> I see two "stable attractors" for text/graphics/multimedia/etc. sent
> over the Net:
> 
> 1. Straight text, ASCII, 80 column format. All systems can handle
> this, all mailers and newsreaders can handle it, it's what the Usenet
> is essentially based upon, and it gets the job done. It meets the
> needs of 95% of us for 95% of our needs.
> 
> 2. The Web, for graphics, images, etc. This will be the next main
> stable attractor, deployed on many platforms. (I'm assuming the debate
> here about Netscape standards does not imply much of a fragmentation,
> that Mosaic, Netscape, MacWeb, etc., will all basically be able to
> display Web pages in much the same way.)
> 

Okay, I'll go with that. I'd just like to point out that http (transport 
for documents serverd on the web) uses mime. That's how your browser 
knows something is html, or a picture of some format, or postscript. 

find a web server (pick one) and telnet to it:

% telnet my.web.server 80

enter the following line and press return *twice*
HEAD / HTTP/1.0

(you need the second line because the server is expecting a mime header 
from you - ended by a blank line).

You'll get some answer like:
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Date: Friday, 16-Dec-94 01:09:44 GMT
Server: NCSA/1.3
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/html
Last-modified: Tuesday, 06-Dec-94 06:10:37 GMT
Content-length: 1067

That's the server's answer to your query - one mime header (the http HEAD 
request asks for info about a document).

If you have a mailer that doesn't automagically verify signatures and 
pack and unpack pgp messages it's a pain (I know tim will agree with 
this). If you have a mailer that can't pack and unpack mime then it's a 
pain too. Just because your mailer doesn't support it doesn't mean that mime 
(or email privacy !) is a bad thing.

-Jon

PS: for those with macs or pcs or unix machines don't have mime. please 
take a look at mpack - might find it usefull.

	ftp://ftp.andrew.cmu.edu/pub/mpack


--
  j.fletcher@stirling.ac.uk
  "opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of
   anyone or anything else."

Timothy C. May says:
> 
> This was one of those "MIME" things I got, that tell me to "Hit any
> key to go on," "Now press ^H-Alt-Hyper-Abort to return to the main
> menu."

It wasn't real mime -- the content type was listed as 
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

with a base64 content transfer encoding, but the contents were not
seven bit ascii. I have no idea what the thing was.

.pm

Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> Timothy C. May says:
> > 
> > This was one of those "MIME" things I got, that tell me to "Hit any
> > key to go on," "Now press ^H-Alt-Hyper-Abort to return to the main
> > menu."
> 
> It wasn't real mime -- the content type was listed as 
> TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
> 
> with a base64 content transfer encoding, but the contents were not
> seven bit ascii. I have no idea what the thing was.

My system marked it as MIME, as the attachment below will show. (To
Jim McCoy: My system is in fact capable of handling MIME, but clearly
"elm," which I and a lot of other people use, sees messages like this
differently from what some others see.)

When I quoted the attached junk, it put it in slightly different form
than it was originally. Here's what I saw on my screen,
cut-and-pasted:

 M 97  Dec 14 Peter F Cassidy    (26)   Re: Less Flaming, More
Civility


[This show that elm marked it as MIME, the "M," even though Perry's
system said it was not true MIME.]

Date: Wed, 14 Dec 1994 16:18:21 +0001 (EST)
From: Peter F Cassidy <pcassidy@world.std.com>
Subject: Re: Less Flaming, More Civility
To: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@netcom.com>
Cc: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@netcom.com>, cypherpunks@toad.com,

tcmay@netcom.com

.       JE$W\)"F27!UU\WP0,Hc)l(:f-U>3b^3%|?S/AloU
*tsa00U]q[B}l5pv(3TLMI*W>h>3b^3%|?S/AloU
dXs]r\kZZ{>HqMV-4A$pGEg8SI3 Ja,1gZ ,L:x7QI5^l
b6?v
E]$[V*K^mr:kfpR


[some whitespace deleted]



Press any key to return to index. 


[end of what I saw on the screen.]



-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: 
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay