On Wednesday 07 February 2007 12:30, Richard Clayton wrote:
> In message <200702071214.04870@???>, Magnus Holmgren
> <holmgren@???> writes
>
> >The right way to add text to a signed and/or encrypted mail would, I
> > believe, be by adding a new MIME part, just like Mailman does. The
> > disclaimer won't be signed or encrypted, of course, but then again it
> > doesn't really contain any information.
>
> Not all signed/encrypted email is MIME (such as this email, at least
> when it left here) !
So much easier then. (But even if it's plain text, it can always be converted
into multipart).
| MIME-Version: 1.0
| Content-Type: text/plain;
| charset="us-ascii"
| Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Perhaps it's Mailman that adds these...
> So you need to understand more than one signing format to have a chance
> of getting things correct
>
> Also, as someone who regularly signs their email, I am very used to
> people with less capable email clients (such as some of those made in
> the Pacific Northwest of the USA) asking me why I keep sending extra
> attachments with funny characters in... viz: you cannot assume that
> every client will properly cope with multiple attachments in a good way
No, but if you made a good faith and standards-compliant attempt at conveying
the required information, IMHO you shouldn't be blamed if the receiver's MUA
is broken.
> So the proper answer is that the text should be put there by the
> originating email systems. If you want to second-guess the need for the
> disclaimer (or company info -- which is only needed in the UK on
> "business email"... and I really don't think this email is "business"
> (though it's hardly "pleasure" either)) then by all means do a check for
> it as the mail passes by... simple, elegant and avoids a lot of scope
> for making emails unreadable at the far end :(
I agree that it's best if any disclaimer is appended by the MUA.
> Nigel was asking about the legality of altering email. IANAL [though I
> try to keep up to date on these things], but I strongly suspect that the
> underlying issue that people are vaguely remembering is the ECommerce
> Directive notion of "mere conduit".
>
> ISPs that alter email passing through their systems lose this statutory
> defence (although they could well still have many other defences against
> liability). However, "mere conduit" would not be an issue for a
> corporate email system -- and I cannot see that their liability for an
> email changes one way or the other by an automated addition of text (or
> mangling of headers or whatever).
I also think there must be, or should be, at least some difference between
covertly altering a message (possibly changing its meaning) and appending a
footer in a clear way.
--
Magnus Holmgren holmgren@???
(No Cc of list mail needed, thanks)
"Exim is better at being younger, whereas sendmail is better for
Scrabble (50 point bonus for clearing your rack)" -- Dave Evans
