Re: Kind reminder: please don't reply to and/or quote spam, ever
On Mon, Apr 20, 2020 at 10:53:47AM -0500, David Wright wrote:
Oh, this was explicitly about Thunderbird's ":exec bounce-message"?
I missed that bit, sorry for that. Will re-read.
If this is so, then : must be an active character in order to
introduce the string "exec". I see no mention of : in that role on
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts
so we need some clarification.
It's always seemed futile to me to bounce an entire message back to
the sender: after all, they sent it, they know what was in it, and
have probably retained a copy (if it's non-trivial).
its usefulness if you work within a group of cooperating colleagues,
where each is taking responsibility for different aspects.
Otherwise, forwarding seems more appropriate and polite. But there are
two forms of fowarding (at least in mutt): as a separate attachment,
or as part of your own email (like with top-posting). In the latter
case (with mutt), you can see that you're only forwarding whichever
parts of the original header that you were displaying at the time.
I think I misspoke, saying "Thunderbird" rather than "neo-mutt"; the
":exec bounce-message" is the way to BOUNCE in neo-mutt, not in
Thunderbird. Forgive me.
BOUNCE also is termed REDIRECT. To REDIRECT in Thunderbird, it
appears necessary to install a plug-in.
As I understand it, BOUNCING or REDIRECTION relays a message in the
most pristine form available, preserving the header, whereas
FORWARDING allows you to make changes to the message. This is (or
should be) true, irrespective of the mail user agent. I cannot speak
with authority regarding the difference between REPLY and FORWARD.
If I receive spam and wish to report it to my ISP, I BOUNCE the
message, so as not to disturb the "evidence" or "scene of the crime".
Likewise, a message which may be criminial in nature (threat,
extortion, pornography), should be BOUNCED to law enforcement and to
the ISP, to facilitate tracing.
A message may be BOUNCED or FORWARDED to anyone, including the sender
(unless the sender has used a fictitious address, which typically is
the case with malicious messages).
Neo-mutt documentation led me to believe that there is a "b" command
(or something of the sort) for BOUNCE; but I did not find it, perhaps
because I use the "Classic Dvorak" keymap. I then discovered that
commands not tied to a key can be executed with ":exec <commandname>".
RLH
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