[SI-LIST] Re: binary posts?
- From: "Ingraham, Andrew" <a.ingraham@xxxxxxxx>
- To: <si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 10:27:52 -0500
> Is it just me, or have several recent posts been unreadable and presumably
> non-text?
Actual binary posts or attachments never make it to this list. The list
blocks (removes) them.
What you're seeing over the last few days is several posts from the same
person that are Base-64 encoded, which turns them into a stream of text
(non-binary) characters. You need a Base64 decoder to read the messages
properly.
Base64 is one way to turn something that might have binary or non-text
characters in it, into a purely text stream, suitable for e-mail. Uuencode
is another.
A lot of Internet e-mail goes out in Base64 form, and normally it displays
correctly when you read it from your mail program; but I think these
particular recent posts are missing something in the mail header to tell
your mail program that they are so encoded. When this happened in the past,
some people on the SI list could see them correctly, so I think some mail
client programs are "smart" enough to recognize them as Base64 encoded even
without the special tag, whereas others (yours and mine) do not.
I used to have a stand-alone Base64 decode program that I'd run them through
... but I don't bother anymore.
The person who is sending these messages needs to change his mail
configuration, maybe to send text only, to fix the problem. Until then, 99%
of us will never know what Peter Zhu is trying to say. The fact that he is
sending them over and over, probably means that he sees the problem too and
doesn't know how to fix it. He should probably contact the list moderator.
Regards,
Andy
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