Dear Board members:
Some email clients send email as "base 64 encoded." This enables easier
transmission of a wider variety of characters, such as those with
umlauts and accent graves. Normally your email client decodes this for
you, and you are unaware that any of this ever takes place.
When a moderated message is sent to you for approval, the raw email is
shown. Often, the raw email is relatively easy to read, but base 64
encoded email must first be decoded. In today's case, Patricia Malloy's
email was base 64 encoded.
To decode base 64 email:
1. Copy the base64 text:
----_com.android.email_3461872543660
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 (make sure to work with the
text/plain section)
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 (make sure the encoding is base64)
(Start copying the next line)
WWVzLCDCoHlvdSBhcmUgY29ycmVjdC4gwqBMYXN0IHdlZWtlbmQgSSBsZWZ0IG15IGNhciDCoG91
dCBmb3IgdHdvIG5pZ2h0cy4gSXQgd2FzIGxvY2tlZCB3aXRoIG5vdGhpbmcgaW4gaXQuIE5vIHRy
b3VibGUgb2NjdXJyZWQuCgoKClNlbnQgZnJvbSBteSBULU1vYmlsZSA0RyBMVEUgRGV2aWNlCgot
...
MzA2LiAKPiAKPiBUaGFua3MsCj4gCj4gTWljaGFlbCBCb290Cj4gNDA0LTkzOS0yNjY4Cj4gCj4g
Cj4gCj4gCgo=
(Stop copying after the equal sign)
2. Find a base64 decoding website, such as
http://www.opinionatedgeek.com/dotnet/tools/Base64Decode/
3. Paste the base64 text into the box and click "Decode Safely As Text."
Out comes the message, in its intended format:
"Yes, you are correct. Last weekend I left my car out for two nights.
It was locked with nothing in it. No trouble occurred. Sent from my
T-Mobile 4G LTE Device"
This is one of those grey area emails. I don't think her comment adds
much value and it has a mocking tone to it. If someone else would like
to approve it, feel free.
Thanks,
Alex
--
Alex Agle
alex@xxxxxxxxx
C 404-229-3325
W 404-894-6165
