On Saturday 14 February 2004 11:25, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
I have often wanted to be able to use some kind of style feature in email, but understand the security consequences of using HTML. That got me to thinking about some kind of XML that could be conjoined with CSS (perhaps a restricted subset of CSS) to produce nicely styled, safe emails. Does anybody follow what I'm saying? Has anybody tried such a thing already?
STH
I think you mis-understand the objection to html in email. It is not objectionable ONLY because of security issues, but also due to the bulk it imposes on the email itself, and the fact that it is not universally readable (such as when non-graphical mail readers are used). So comeing up with a non html solution solves only one minor aspect of the problem. It is after all, mostly a Microsoft problem of offering mail readers that can not be made secure. Kmail can be easily locked down and set up to never honor Html and security is then enhanced. But in spite of the security, Size, and universal accessability issues there is ALSO the sheer annoyance factor of having to put up with someone's wild and crazy ideas of formating, Fonts, Colors, backgrounds. A growing number of people reject the idea that anyone with a keyboard and a modem gets to determine what appears on someone elses screen. The beauty of plain text is that ideas stand by themselves. People who absolutely need formatting, (such as for sending reports or complex printed pages) etc have plenty of generally trusted formats such as pdf to use (as attachments). These are (and rightly should be) easily filterable against the day an exploit is found in the format. So I ask, will the free exchange of Ideas and discussion be enhanced in any meaningfull way if you succeed in developing a new style/graphic format that resolves security issues? I suspect not, but that's just me... -- _____________________________________ John Andersen