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Re: ITP: MimeFilter.



On Wed, Jan 17, 2001 at 10:52:03AM +0100, Davide G. M. Salvetti wrote:
> I think you know how to access incoming: just try and install the
> package, then you could easily see for yourself what it does.

I likely won't do that because my concerns are moral as well as technical.


> JC> Same probably applies for a lot of attachment types which are (but
> JC> wouldn't likely be recognized as) the message body.
> 
> See Joseph, I think people who administer a mailing list know what
> _they_ want to consider to be the message body, and, what's more, they
> surely can choose if they want to install MimeFilter or not.

Perhaps so, but I've always felt that documented policies were better than
filtering software.  Filtering is never the right answer.


> JC> If I'm right, this seems like a very dangerous program to use.
> 
> The ice on the cake is that you don't have to.  Free software is such a
> wonderful thing. ;-)
> 
> Talking about hot air isn't exactly the best way to see what a program
> does: you have the source, just look at it if you're curious, else
> ignore it at your leisure.

If I send a vcard attachment, your software will by default throw it out.
What if I was sending it for a reason?  How about if I attached a small
snippet of C source code to a message for people's opinion?  How about if
it was a piece of HTML or something?  Perhaps you feel you can make the
determination that such things are either appropriate or not and if it's
your list software you have that right.  You can do it, but that doesn't
necessarily mean you should.

I object to this software based on what it does: tear apart mail so it can
be reassembled without objectionable material such as HTML or binary or
other things, as determined by the person running the mail gateway be it a
list or an ISP or who knows what.  I feel strongly about this, however it
seems others do not, and I will let it go at that.  I do hope this
software at least has the decency to include a header or footer on
messages it modifies so you know that it has been eating mail and that at
least part of the message has been sucked into oblivian.

-- 
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org>                Free software developer

<Knghtbrd> It's a trackball for one
<wichert> so it's not a rodent
<wichert> it's a turd with a ball sticking out
<wichert> which you fondle constantly

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