"Attachments"

Why do people keep sending "attachments"?

This was just a text article, and not an application (program), so why was
it included as an "attachment"?

At 8:27 PM 9/17/95, Michael Shields wrote:
>Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:cypherpunks as a newsgroup (????/----)
>(00005C4E)

The message was, as Microsoft Word 6.0 saw it:

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

The general opinion seems to be that the netnews format is very
convenient, though we should keep the list; but that entering Usenet or
Altnet would lower the S/N.

Why not, then, start a new hierarchy?  Why not gate cypherpunks not to
alt.cypherpunks or comp.security.cypherpunks, but to crypto.cypherpunks?
We could feed it freely between us and set up NNTP servers which are
open for just crypto.*.  c.c would be the only crypto.* group for now,
but it would also be easy to add more -- say, for the "respectable"
splinter group, or for protocol WGs.  We'd get the convenience of netnews
without the high profile.

I'm willing to run the gateway on news.tembel.org and feed other sites,
if people think crypto.cypherpunks is a good idea.  Opinions?
- --
Shields.

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---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
Corralitos, CA              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839      | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

> Why do people keep sending "attachments"?
> 
> This was just a text article, and not an application (program), so why was
> it included as an "attachment"?

It wasn't.  It was a monopart MIME message of type application/pgp.
Check your mailer config.
-- 
Shields.

Tim May the Luddite ;) writes:
[in response to Michael Shields' application/pgp message]
> Why do people keep sending "attachments"?
> 
> This was just a text article, and not an application (program), so why was
> it included as an "attachment"?

It's useful for those of us with MIME-enabled mailers, appropriately
configured -- PGP is automatically launched to check the signature.

It's not useful for others on the list, AFAIK.

Pretty please, let's not have another MIME war; I think we drove Amanda
Walker away permanently with the last one.

Followups directed somewhere other than cypherpunks@toad.com.

-Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com>