Configuring Mail Clients to Send Plain ASCII Text

What is wrong with sending HTML or MIME messages?

There are a three main reasons for NOT doing this:

  1. Many E-mail and Usenet News reader programs, usually the mail and news reader programs that come with browser packages, allow users to include binary attachments (MIME or other encoding) or HTML (normally found on web pages) within their E-mail messages. This makes URLs into clickable links and it means that graphic images, formatting, and even color coded text can also be included in E-mail messages. While this makes your E-mail interesting and pretty to look at, it can cause problems for other people who receive your E-mail because they may use different E-mail programs, different computer systems, and different application programs whose files are often not fully compatible with each other. Any of these can cause trouble with in-line HTML (or encoded attachments). Most of the time all they see is the actual HTML code behind the message. And if someone replies to the HTML formatted message, the quoting can render the message even more unreadable. In some cases, the message is nothing but strange looking text. For this reason, many mailing lists especially those that provide a digest version, explicitly forbid the use of HTML formatted e-mail. See examples section.

    When you send an attachment, like a word processor file, to have it appear on the other end as the exact same type of file the recipient must have hardware and software that can read that file. For example, if you attach a Microsoft Word file, and the recipient of your message is using a word processor that can't open MS Word files, that person isn't going to be able to open your attachment and they are less than likely to be very happy about it.
  2. HTML or MIME messages are larger and more wasteful than simple text messages. Using HTML or MIME in E-mail messages makes the messages larger in size by a mimimum of two thirds to more than twenty times. These will take longer to download and they take up more storage space than standard plain text E-mail messages. E-mail storage is important because many people retain copies of messages they receive and in the case of mailing list digests, the individual messages are combined in one large message and sent to the user at the end of the day. Some mailing list programs fail to format the digest correctly if HTML messages appear. In addition, many mailing lists archive the messages for periods of 6 months or more to enable users to search for particular past postings.
  3. HTML or MIME messages leave or include unwanted files (attachments) on the machines of the recipients of these messages.

Plain text is how your messages should be formatted when sending E-mail to mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups or to any other recipient. Though this rule is not yet cast in "Netiquette" stone, it is a good policy to follow if you want quick and informative responses to your questions and wish to avoid being "flamed" as a clueless newbie.

HTML is meant for the WWW; not for mailing lists, Usenet newsgroups postings, proper business E-mail correspondence and preferably not for personal E-mail unless the recipient is expecting it.

MIME encoded mail is used to send attachments that consist of pictures, sound files, spreadsheets, word-processing documents, zip files, or other binary files to recipients that have and use the same operating system, the same word processing program and a common E-mail program such as Eudora, Pegasus, Netscape, or Outlook.

MIME attachments are not wanted on mailing lists, Usenet newsgroups postings, business E-mail correspondence, and preferably not for personal E-mail unless the recipient is expecting it.

For background information see "Netiquette Guidelines (RFC1855)"

To see what actual HTML/MIME mail looks like in UNIX Pine, see examples section.

Turning Off HTML or MIME

There are now a variety of HTML/MIME programs, including but not limited to:

For creators of HTML and MIME messages, here are some suggestions

Agent/Free Agent

Agent currently does MIME quoted printable. Free Agent does not.

The MIME quoted printable option can be configured separately for each language you have configured in Agent.

AOL 5.0 and earlier

AOL automatically converts all attachments to MIME when you click on the "Attach" button. So don't use this button.

AOL 6.0

AOL now supports Multipart/Alternative formatted messages which means that a single message sent from a user now contains a plain-text version and a formatted version. Users who use e-mail programs that do NOT support HTML will be able to read the plain-text version of the message without any of the cryptic HTML codes.

Likewise, if the e-mail client supports the HTML format, then the user will read that version.

The headers will show the Content-Type line similar to: 

        Mime-Version: 1.0
        Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=blah...blah...
        Content-Disposition: Inline
        X-Mailer: 6.0 sub 171

AOL recommends this method to send plain text:

The headers may show the Content-Type line similar to: 

        Mime-Version: 1.0
        Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
        Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
        X-Mailer: 6.0 sub 336

The "Customer Care" folks at AOL also offer the following solution: Use AOL Mail on the Web to send mail to Internet addresses that don't allow formatting - AOL Mail on the Web sends mail as plain text only.

NOTE: To use AOL Mail on the Web you will need to signoff AOL.

The Unofficial AOL E-mail FAQ recommends that an AOL 6.0 user can turn off the HTML using the following steps:

Note that changing the text to normal will eliminate the "blue bar" quoted text indicator, but will not remove some HTML elements of the quoted text. The entire quoted section must be deleted (or simply not quoted in the first place), followed by the re-entry of the text quoted manually, prior to changing the text to normal. Changing the text to normal will also eliminate any styled text that would have been seen by AOL recipients of the message, which cannot be re-added. Testing also suggests that messages with hyperlinks cannot be converted to normal text, requiring the prior removal of the link.

CompuServe 2000

Compuserve 2000 only supports Windows 95/98 and closely resembles AOL because it uses an identical installation routine, the same e-mail client, and a similar interface. CompuServe 2000 also shares the same V.90 network as AOL.

So to send plain text e-mail using CompuServe 2000, see the instructions for AOL 5.0 and earlier.

Entourage 2001 (MacIntosh)

Microsoft Entourage is a new e-mail and personal information manager that makes it easy to communicate with others and organize your personal information.

Entourage comes bundled with Office:Mac 2001. It is only available for Macintosh. Since it was built from the foundation provided by Outlook Express for Mac, the instructions are somewhat similar to that program.

Eudora Light v3.0.5 and earlier

You can have Eudora warn you before sending messages that contain styled text or HTML.

If you want to make sure that you never accidentally send a message with styled or HTML text, you can have Eudora automatically discard the styles before sending any message.

This means that even if your message is filled with bold and italics, colors, and font changes, the message will be sent out without any of this formatting; instead it will be stripped down to the basic plain text before Eudora sends it. Also, the quoted-printable method of character encoding (used by non-US versions for foreign character recognition) can cause some formatting problems for some mail readers. If you do not need to type these foreign characters, you should turn off the quoted- printable option.

Eudora Light v3.0.6

If you want to make sure that you never accidentally send a message with styled or HTML text, you can have Eudora automatically discard the styles before sending any message.

This means that even if your message is filled with bold and italics, colors, and font changes, the message will be sent out without any of this formatting; instead it will be stripped down to the basic plain text before Eudora sends it. Also, the quoted-printable method of character encoding (used by non-US versions for foreign character recognition) can cause some formatting problems for some mail readers. If you do not need to type these foreign characters, you should turn off the quoted- printable option.

Eudora Pro v4.0.2 and earlier

Eudora Pro has a "Styled Text" option, which makes messages available in RTF. Currently Eudora Pro doesn't support HTML within the body of a message. When posting a message to a mailing list, you can click on the button on the far right of each individual message's tool bar to "Clear Formatting." You can also set up the options to either warn you of outgoing messages that contain styled text or to discard the styles before sending the messages:

You can have Eudora turn off MIME encoding when sending messages that contain special characters.

Eudora automatically uses quoted-printable (MIME) encoding if your mail contains special characters. Eudora also uses quoted-printable encoding for attached plain text files. If your recipients don't have MIME, then just turn off the QP button in the message icon bar when you are sending text files to those recipients.

Eudora Pro v4.2 and later

Eudora Pro has a "Styled Text" option, which makes messages available in HTML format within the body of a message. When posting a message to a mailing list, you can click on the button on the far right of each individual message's tool bar to "Clear Formatting." You can also set up the options to either send plain text or styled text or both.

You can have Eudora turn off MIME encoding when sending messages that contain special characters.

Eudora automatically uses quoted-printable (MIME) encoding if your mail contains special characters. Eudora also uses quoted-printable encoding for attached plain text files. If your recipients don't have MIME, then just turn off the QP button in the message icon bar when you are sending text files to those recipients.

Eudora v5.0

Eudora has a "Styled Text" option, which makes messages available in HTML format within the body of a message. When posting a message to a mailing list, you can click on the button on the far right of each individual message's tool bar to "Clear Formatting." You can also set up the options to either send plain text or styled text or both.

You can have Eudora turn off MIME encoding when sending messages that contain special characters.

Eudora automatically uses quoted-printable (MIME) encoding if your mail contains special characters. Eudora also uses quoted-printable encoding for attached plain text files. If your recipients don't have MIME, then just turn off the QP button in the message icon bar when you are sending text files to those recipients.

Hotmail

Juno v5.0

With Juno you can now send HTML e-mail as well as plain text messages. The default format for new messages you compose in the Write screen is plain text. As you write your message and add any kind of formatting (color, images, font), the format automatically changes to HTML. If you know that the person you are sending the message to uses an e-mail program that is not HTML compatible, make sure to change the message format to plain text (otherwise, the person might not be able to read your message).

To change the e-mail message format to plain text:

Outlook 2000

WARNING: Outlook 2000 uses what Microsoft calls Auto Format Reply. Due to the variety of message formats supported by different e-mail clients, Outlook 2000 ensures that e-mail recipients receive replies they can read easily. When users reply to a message, Outlook automatically uses the format of the original message. This is especially frustrating if you receive HTML e-mail and wish to send Plain Text e-mail.

To override the default for any individual message, click on the "Format" menu within the message and choose the desired format. Outlook 2000 lets you select the e-mail format for a mail message in what they call one-off editor switching. You can start a new message in a different format than the standard one by selecting New Mail Message Using from the Actions menu.

Outlook doesn't have any way to select the mail format to use when sending mail to a particular recipient when you use the drop-down list on a Contact item or an Address list entry.

NOTE: A problem you may encounter when you open an incoming e-mail message, you may see a blank message or three less than symbols (<<<) displayed instead of the message text.

In some cases, depending on the Internet e-mail software used, the message may contain other random, unrelated characters or the message body may be blank.

Microsoft describes this behavior in the Knowledge Base article (OL2000: Message Received from Outlook Express 5 May Contain Unrelated Characters)

NOTE: You may notice that plain text messages do not word wrap properly when you print the message, or view it in print preview. To resolve this problem you may need to obtain Microsoft Office 2000 Service Release 1/1a (SR-1/SR-1a).

Microsoft describes this behavior in the Knowledge Base article (OL2000: Plain Text Messages Word Wrap Incorrectly When Printed)

WARNING: If you are using a version of Outlook 2000 that has been installed with the corporate workgroup installation you may discover that when you set e-mail to send "Plain Text" that it has been changed to "Quoted-Printable" instead of 7-bit or ASCII.

WARNING: If you send messages with multiple file attachments to America Online (AOL) users, they do not receive the messages in a readable format. AOL combines the text of the message and the attachments into a single MIME (.mim) file.

AOL users who receive messages as MIME files can open them using WinZip in Classic mode. The message text and all of the attachments are displayed intact.

Microsoft describes this behavior in the Knowledge Base article (OL2000: Messages with Multiple Attachments Sent to AOL Users Do Not Display Correctly)

MS Internet Explorer 4.0, 5.0 and 5.50

Unfortunately Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and 5 come packaged with mail programs whose default configuration is to send HTML formatted mail.

MSIE comes with the program Outlook Express as its mail client. To configure Outlook Express to send text only messages:

Outlook Express 4.0

All of your messages will now be sent as plain text. Outlook Express 4.x can also be configured to send Business Cards (also referred to as vCards) with your e-mail. These are attachments, which show up as strings of unreadable code on most mailing lists. To turn these off:

Outlook Express 5.0, 5.50, and 6.00

All of your messages will now be sent as plain text. Outlook Express can also be configured to send Business Cards (also referred to as vCards) with your e-mail. These are attachments, which show up as strings of unreadable code on most mailing lists. To turn these off:

Netscape Communicator 6.x

When in a new message screen (Compose)

Netscape Communicator 4.5, 4.6, 4.7

Unfortunately, Netscape Communicator 4.5, 4.6, 4.7 also come packaged with mail programs whose default configuration is to send HTML formatted mail.

Netscape Messenger can also be configured to send Address Book Cards (also referred to as vCards) with your e-mail. These are attachments, which show up as strings of unreadable code on most mailing lists. To turn these off:

Netscape Communicator 4.0x - 4.4x

Unfortunately, Netscape Communicator 4 also comes packaged with mail programs whose default configuration is to send HTML formatted mail.

Netscape Messenger can also be configured to send Address Book Cards (also referred to as vCards) with your e-mail. These are attachments, which show up as strings of unreadable code on most mailing lists. To turn these off:

Netscape Communicator 3.xx

Unfortunately, Netscape Communicator 3 also comes packaged with mail programs whose default configuration is to send HTML formatted mail.

Outlook 97 (without Service Release 1 SR1)

The original version of Outlook 97 (the one without the Office 97 Service Release 1 (SR1) installed) automatically formats all messages you send when you hit the "Reply" button in Rich Text Format, which then shows as an attachment on a mailing list (or in any e-mail program other than Microsoft Exchange or Outlook). This "Reply bug" can be fixed in any of the following four ways:

  1. Download and install the Office 97 Service Release 1 (SR1)
  2. Download and install inetmail.exe which updates Outlook 97.
  3. In the E-mail box, double-click the e-mail address. Clear the "Always send to this recipient in Windows Messaging Rich Text Format" check box. (Note: This must be done *each* time a message is sent via the Reply button.)
  4. Download and install "RTFGuard" written by Ben Goetter This will alert you when a message is about to be sent with RTF formatting, giving you the option to discard the formatting before sending.

If you are using your Outlook 97 address book to send messages to the mail list, make certain you do not have Rich Text Format selected for that address book entry:

Outlook 97 (with Service Release 1 SR1)

If you are using your Outlook 97 address book to send messages to the mail list, make certain you do not have Rich Text Format selected for that address book entry:

Outlook 98 (Work group version)

Outlook 98 (Internet version)

MSN Explorer 6.0

MSN Explorer Tech support states "that MSN Explorer and MSN.com send web-based HTML e-mail ONLY and cannot be configured to send plain text."

However, if you use MSN as your mail service (i.e., username@msn.com) you can simply go to Hotmail.com and send e-mail from there in plain text (via their so-called PASSPORT system). Same inbox, address book, etc.

You just have to remember to send or reply to POP3 and plain text e-mail from Hotmail and not from MSN. A real nuisance but at least an option.

Unfortunately the transfer to Hotmail from MSN e-mail takes you through 3 screens and requires you to reenter your password even if you checked the "remember my password" box.

MS Exchange and other

Note: As you close the various windows on the way back a message will appear, advising that "configuration changes will not take effect until the next time you log onto Internet Mail".

WINMAIL.DAT

When I send mail to an Internet mailing list, its members complain that my messages contain big binary attachments called WINMAIL.DAT. What's happening? How can I get rid of these?

Either intentionally or accidentally, you have been sending messages in Microsoft rich text format to recipients using mail programs that cannot decipher this format.

When Exchange thinks that it is sending mail to another Exchange user on the Internet, Exchange (more properly, the Internet Mail message service provider) encodes the message, along with attached files, embedded OLE objects, and their associated icons, into a special data block called the TNEF (pronounced tee-neff) block. This block can be seen in the mail header and looks similar to: 

        ------ =_NextPart_000_01BB9403.FCDBDA20
        Content-Type: application/ms-tnef
        Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

This block encapsulates the complete original content of the Exchange message, so that the message arrives at its destination with all proper formatting intact, including boldface, underlining, fonts, and colors. Otherwise, Exchange formats the message in an Internet standard fashion, discarding all rich text attributes and ensuring that all attached files appear as standard attachments.

The problem arises when people not using Exchange or Outlook receive a message in the TNEF format: instead of seeing a formatted message, they see a big chunk of UUENCODE data if the sender used UUENCODE format, or a MIME body part application/ms-tnef if the sender used MIME. Depending on which mail program they use, they may either see a long sequence of hexadecimal digits, or they may see an attached binary file named WINMAIL.DAT.

Exchange specifies whether it emits TNEF or not as a property of the recipient, appearing as a field on the property page of the underlined recipient object within an Exchange To or Cc field. (The underline in the To field means that Exchange has recognized the name, and associated an address and other information with it.) To see this recipient property page, double click the underlined recipient: when using either the Internet Mail provider or Microsoft Exchange Server, the popup that appears should include a check box labeled Send to this recipient in Microsoft rich text format. If this check box is set, Exchange/Internet Mail will use a TNEF block when sending messages to that user; otherwise, it will strip the rich information and send plain text. The sender can also set and clear this flag on entries in the Personal Address Book. Should the sender address a message using an entry from the Address Book, Exchange will use the setting of this flag from that entry.

Never set this check box if you suspect that your recipient isn't using Exchange or Outlook, or if you are sending mail to an Internet mailing list. Otherwise, your mail will include binary garbage.

Here's how to turn it off:

Step #1:

Step #2:

Note: Either of these methods should work for most users, but sometimes nothing seems to work - yet another brilliant design strategy by Microsoft. If you plan to be sending lots of internet e-mail, you should seriously consider using a mail program more suited to the task, such as Pegasus or Eudora.

Note: A bug ("feature"?) in Exchange may cause line feeds to be replaced with equal signs when rich text mail is disabled.

Unfortunately, there are several ways to send Internet mail messages in TNEF format by accident.

Some workarounds:

Microsoft has their own explanation of this phenomenon in the Knowledge Base article Q136204 (XCLN: Sending Messages In Rich-Text Format)

Microsoft also has an article on how to prevent WINMAIL.DAT from being sent in the Knowledge Base article Q138053 (XFOR: How to Prevent the Winmail.dat File from Being Sent to Internet Users)

The entire preceding discussion assumes that you are using either the Internet Mail (SMTP/POP3) or Microsoft Exchange Server messaging service. If instead you are using the Microsoft Mail messaging service, and depending on a Microsoft Mail gateway to carry your message onto the Internet, you are out of luck, unless you have a gateway clever enough to strip WINMAIL.DAT.

Equal signs at end of lines

When I send mail to Internet users, they complain that my text has equals signs at the end of each line. What is this? How can I make it stop?

You are sending your messages in the MIME message format. The Microsoft Internet Mail program sends plain text messages in a MIME format called Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable. The mail header usually shows something similar to: 

        Mime-Version: 1.0
        Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
        Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

If you find this bothersome, you have several options. You can keep all of your lines less than 76 characters long, in which case the Internet Mail service provider will not have to insert these soft line break sequences. You can send your mail in a format other than MIME, via the Message Format setting. If your correspondent is using Exchange, you can specify that Exchange send rich text along with the message. Or your correspondent can use a MIME mail reader, which presumably will know how to handle this encoding correctly.

Some e-mail programs, most notably those from Microsoft that use quoted-printable encoding can encode high order ASCII characters using a scheme where the equal sign ("=") indicates a character to be decoded followed by the hexadecimal string value of the character to be encoded. This system of course assumes that the client e-mail program can decode these characters (which most can). Things that trigger automatic quoted-printable encoding:

  1. High order characters - characters with the following ordinal values 0..31,61,128..255
  2. Long lines in a message body (you can turn wordwrap on to fix this)

If your message contains extended characters coded in quoted-printable format your e-mail client may append the following preamble to your message:

Sender composed mail containing characters not in the US-ASCII set
These characters have been transformed into a printable form.

This is identified in the mail header under the Content-Type line similar to: 

        Mime-Version: 1.0
        Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
        Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

To correct this, change your default character set from ISO 8859-1 to US ASCII, or else take any of the precautions listed above. For more information, see the Knowledge Base articles Q146629 (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Lines End with a "=") and Q168779 OLEXP: No Quote Characters When Using Quoted Printable Format. The mail headers should then show: 

        Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Note that the Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector (IMC) only encodes content this way on multipart MIME messages. When the IMC processes a message lacking extended characters or attachments, it instead hard wraps the plain text.

ISO 8859-1 or other character set

This is identified in the mail header under the Content-Type line similar to: 

        Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

To correct this, change your default character set from ISO 8859-1 to US ASCII.

For Windows 95 do the following:

For Windows 98 this is controlled in Outlook and Outlook Express.

Lotus Notes R5

By default all mail in Lotus Notes is in the Notes Rich Text Format but may be set to MIME.

To send mail or news postings in plain text or HTML or both:

Novell Groupwise

Generally it is assumed that the e-mail server does not alter the message at all, and that the sender and their client software is entirely in control of the message which is sent. In some systems, such as Lotus ccMail, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange or Novell Groupwise, the client and server do not follow this model, do not use Internet standards and do not necessarily follow the conventions and standards of Internet e-mail. In those cases compatibility with Internet standards may be handled by a third item of software - a gateway. Thus there can be problems of a significant difference between what the sender sees when they write the e-mail (which is probably similar to how it appears to recipients in their office), and what is actually sent to Internet recipients.

Users of Internet compliant software sometimes disparage the continued use of proprietary systems such as Novell Groupwise or Lotus Notes, based on the awkward or hard-to-read e-mails they sometimes receive from these systems. However their continued use is inevitable since within their own system they provide additional powerful "groupware" functionality which is valuable to larger organizations and which cannot currently be provided with standard Internet protocols. All these systems can be configured to respect Internet technical standards and conventions (although perhaps not in a way which the sender can see or control) - the problem is that they are sometimes mis-configured by default, creating difficulties for all their users.

Some e-mail client programs can be configured (or are configured by default) to send each paragraph as one long line. Some e-mail systems such as Groupwise (and apparently Lotus Notes), have a single setting in the server (the Message Transfer Agent, which may include a SMTP gateway) which either wraps all outgoing e-mails of all users to a particular line length, or sends all e-mails of all users with each paragraph as an arbitrarily long line (unless the user manually sets the line length by pressing "enter"). In neither case does the user control this single, system-wide, setting. Nor may the server's wrapping correspond to what they see on screen when writing.

Arbitrarily long lines can be sent within SMTP standards using the "quoted-printable" MIME type.

If such arbitrarily long lines are sent as plain text, then the 1,000 character limit of SMTP may be reached and the sending client or system may wrap the line arbitrarily there, or may send it out longer than 1,000 characters. If this happens, a recipient SMTP server may reject it, or break the line. In one instance a plain text e-mail from Groupwise 4.2 exceeded the 1,000 character per line limit. That paragraph, of 1,253 characters was broken in mid word by a SMTP server just before the 1,000th character. This and later versions of Groupwise are used in a significant number of VET institutes, where the system is valued for many functions apart from its Internet e-mail capabilities.

Quoting styles. The established approach to quoting a line of text: "> " or ">" is no longer the only approach. Other methods, which are the default in Groupwise and perhaps other clients or e-mail systems, are much harder to understand, at least in some circumstances, since they mark only the start of the paragraph as a comment, rather than the start of each line. A plethora of incompatible quoting styles is a source of error and frustration for novices and experienced users alike - so an operational guideline standardise on "> " or ">" was decided upon, with the matter to be reviewed within 12 months or so.

Pegasus Mail 3.x

Pegasus Mail 4.x

Pine 4.x (Unix)

Pine 4.x (Windows)

Poco v2.xx

Poco supports receiving and sending of both Styled mail (also known as HTML mail) and plain text mail.

TheBat! v1.xx

Yahoo Mail

When Replying or Forwarding, edit the previous text and remove all footer material before adding your new text.

If you want to use a Signature, make sure you select "plain text" before sending.

You can set plain text signature as the default.

WebTV

There are some sites on the 'net like HTML for WebTV E-Mail and How To Use HTML In WebTV E-Mail that inform users to add HTML coding to their WebTV signature, PLEASE IGNORE THIS BAD ADVICE!

WebTV users should NEVER leave an HTML signature "added" when posting anywhere outside of the WebTV Community OR e-mailing to a non-WebTV user. Unless you remove it, they will probably receive your message as an attachment and will be less than happy with you. Attachments are the number one purveyor of viruses. See WebTV Flood virus for example.

How to Set Up a Signature and Remove HTML coding

If you using an HTML signature, then you MUST make sure to remove it before posting to non-WebTV users. Your mail should be compatible with other user's systems by using only plain text and no HTML.

NOTE: The default in the WebTV e-mail Write page is set to include the signature.

Examples of actual HTML/MIME encoded mail

The examples seen below were actually received by me in my UNIX Pine mail program. These show what I actually see when I open the message in Pine. The only thing I have changed is the users identity. 

Received: from engine2.hyperia.com ([208.198.156.11])
        by no2.superb.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f3MA0eC18408
        for <gboyd@expita.com>; Sun, 22 Apr 2001 06:00:41 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from c2 ([208.198.157.163]) by engine2.hyperia.com
          (Post.Office MTA Undefined release Undefined
          ID# 589-65135U6000L100S0) with SMTP id AAA24823
          for <gboyd@expita.com>; Sun, 22 Apr 2001 10:57:57 +0100
Message-ID: <002d01c0cb1b$62570700$a39dc6d0@c2>
From: xxxxxxxx@hyperia.com (Cxxxxx Txxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
To: <gboyd@expita.com>
Subject: Firewalls
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 11:00:02 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
        boundary="----=_NextPart_000_002A_01C0CB1B.61521A20"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300
Parts/Attachments:
   1   OK    ~25 lines  Text (charset: ISO-8859-1)
   2 Shown   ~49 lines  Text (charset: ISO-8859-1)
----------------------------------------


    [ Part 1, Text/PLAIN (charset: ISO-8859-1 "Latin 1")  25 lines. ]
    [ Not Shown. Use the "V" command to view or save this part. ]

    [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ]
    [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set.  ]
    [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META content="MSHTML 5.00.2314.1000" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I work for a company with 20 or so networked
computers and no connection to the outside world. Our e-mail is currently
received through standalone dialup PC's which are not connected to the
Network.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>What we now wish to do is have continuous access
to
an e-mail server on the Internet for all our LAN PCs. We do not intend to allow
any Internet browsing or any other Internet Services whatsoever.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>We are using Windows NT as the operating system
for
our LAN network and may in the future upgrade to win 2000.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>My Question is: If only EMAIL will be used is a
Firewall really necessary. i.e. does the operating system itself ( be it NT or
the newer 2000) allow for blocking all services BUT e-mail? If yes, having
people
use all Internet services via e-mail, will it present a security
risk?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It is not really the additional expense of the
firewall that I am concerned about, rather it is the additional complexity and
knowledge involved with a firewall that concerns me.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I will be grateful for your reply</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Regards,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Cxxxxx Txxx</FONT></DIV>
</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>


Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 20:51:57 -0400
From: Envision 
To: friend 
Subject: equipment
Parts/Attachments:
   1.1   OK     ~71 lines  Text (charset: ISO-8859-1)
   1.2 Shown   ~183 lines  Text (charset: ISO-8859-1)
   2             13 KB     Image
   3            2.7 KB     Image
   4            2.3 KB     Image
   5            5.4 KB     Image
----------------------------------------


    [ Part 1.1, Text/PLAIN (charset: ISO-8859-1 "Latin 1")  71 lines. ]
    [ Not Shown. Use the "V" command to view or save this part. ]

    [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ]
    [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set.  ]
    [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]

[IMAGE]

www.envisionfirst.com

Envision Ophthalmic Equipment is Buying and Selling Ophthalmic
Instruments

[IMAGE]

[IMAGE]

Envision is looking to purchase used ophthalmic equipment.   Age and
condition does not matter, so take a look in your closets, backrooms,
garages, storage, or just an extra lane your not using and make a list
and e-mail it to: selling@envisionfirst.com or fax it to: 734.354.8693

 *  B&L Refractors

 *  AO RX Masters

 *  AO 590
[snip]
[IMAGE]

    [ Part 2, Image/JPEG  18KB. ]
    [ Cannot display this part. Press "V" then "S" to save in a file. ]


    [ Part 3, Image/JPEG  3.6KB. ]
    [ Cannot display this part. Press "V" then "S" to save in a file. ]


    [ Part 4, Image/JPEG  3.1KB. ]
    [ Cannot display this part. Press "V" then "S" to save in a file. ]


    [ Part 5, Image/JPEG  7.2KB. ]
    [ Cannot display this part. Press "V" then "S" to save in a file. ]


Received: from mclean.mail.mindspring.net (mclean.mail.mindspring.net
    [207.69.200.57])
        by no2.superb.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f3MJHeo17266
        for <gboyd@expita.com>; Sun, 22 Apr 2001 15:17:41 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from JASON (user-vcauipu.dsl.mindspring.com [216.175.75.62])
        by mclean.mail.mindspring.net (8.9.3/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA17437
        for <gboyd@expita.com>; Sun, 22 Apr 2001 15:17:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Jxxxx Fxxxxx" <xxxxxxx@earthlink.net>
To: <gboyd@expita.com>
Subject: Setting Up Earthlink DSL on Two machines
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 15:26:10 -0400
Message-ID: <CIEPLOKFNPMNMPOHOHCEGEDGCAAA.xxxxxxx@earthlink.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
        boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0000_01C0CB40.8F202D50"
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0)
Importance: Normal
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400
Parts/Attachments:
   1   OK     10 lines  Text (charset: ISO-8859-1)
   2 Shown   ~23 lines  Text (charset: ISO-8859-1)
----------------------------------------


    [ Part 1, Text/PLAIN (charset: ISO-8859-1 "Latin 1")  10 lines. ]
    [ Not Shown. Use the "V" command to view or save this part. ]

    [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ]
    [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set.  ]
    [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 5.50.4611.1300" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=187582319-22042001>I read your article
of how you set up Earthlink DSL on all your machines.&nbsp; I am running two
machines both windows 2000.&nbsp; I have two network cards in one and one
network card in the other.&nbsp; I enable Internet Connection Sharing on the
DSL
connection and can't get the second machine to connect.&nbsp; File sharing is
working perfectly so the computers and connected correctly.&nbsp; Any
Ideas.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=187582319-22042001></SPAN></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Jxxxx Fxxxxx</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>xxxxxxx@earthlink.net</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV></BODY></HTML>

Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 01:01:32
From: htwkh@21cn.net
To: gbp2@one.net
Subject: 癫痫、骨炎风湿、肿瘤》病患者的福音

[ The following text is in the "DEFAULT_CHARSET" character set. ]
[ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ]
[ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE></TITLE>
<META content="text/html; charset=gb2312" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META content="MSHTML 5.00.2614.3500" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY><B>收件人:</B> htwkh@21cn.net<BR><B>主题:</B>
《癫痫、骨炎风湿、肿瘤》病患者的福音<BR>
<P><FONT size=2>先生/女士：您好？<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
此信是《癫痫、骨炎风湿、肿瘤》病患者的福音，只发一次，绝非垃圾。如阁下或亲友中并
无此病，我们为此信表示道歉，请即删除。《楚天癫痫、骨炎风湿、肿瘤病治疗康复中心》
，是一家面向全国及港、澳、台，经营20多年，以治疗癫痫、骨炎风湿、肿瘤病为主的康复
中心。本中心在中医六世单传秘方的基础上，采用中药提取物研制了最新1－4号药物，一改
先前的大包小袋药，汤锅里煎的方式，治疗不同类型<<癫痫、骨炎风湿、肿瘤>>病，副作用
少，疗效好，总有效治愈率达96.5%以上。<BR>如有意在我中心治疗或知道详细请到<A
href="http://htwkh.51.net"
target=_blank>http://htwkh.51.net</A>我们联系。<BR></FONT><FONT
size=2>电话：0728—5336186&nbsp;&nbsp;<BR>详细地址：湖北省天门市黄潭新街8号5<BR>
邮政编号：431708<BR>主治医师：王方林<BR>康复中心信箱：<A
href="mailto:htwkh@21cn.net">htwkh@21cn.net</A>.<BR>此致<BR>敬礼</FONT>
</P></BODY></HTML>

Nasty looking, aren't they? No wonder I dislike HTML e-mail. The worse
of them is the next sample, a base64 (MIME) encoded message.

Received: from city.cityedu.com ([211.37.94.194])
          by listserv.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.8)
          with SMTP id MAA11272 for <accmail@listserv.aol.com>;
          Sun, 22 Apr 2001 12:29:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: i284497472@hotmail.com
Received: from 211.37.94.194 (unverified [163.30.52.134]) by city.cityedu.com
 (EMWAC SMTPRS 0.83) with SMTP id <B0000006866@city.cityedu.com>;
 Mon, 23 Apr 2001 01:22:42 +0900
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 01:22:42 +0900
Message-ID: <B0000006866@city.cityedu.com>
Reply-To: i284497472@hotmail.com
To: i284497472@hotmail.com
Subject: 【【【Flying Shose!!【【【【Flying Shose!!【【【
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=big5
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
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References:

Last Revised: October 02, 2001
Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions concerning these web pages.
gboyd@expita.com

? 1