Someone, I believe it was Glenn, had replied to a post I made on the Arachne List by commenting that the problem I spoke of might be attributable to a glitch in the matrix.
I have forgotten the "Subject:" header of my original post on the Arachne List. Although glitches in the matrix are still believed to exist, and while the glitch hunt is still being relentlessly pursued, I have discovered that an alleged glitch in the matrix was not the cause of the problem in this case. The problem first appeared when I attempted to read a message posted by Roger Turk. The message he sent was a plain DOS text message but it appeared as though it were a base64 encoded message. Roger has since corresponded with his TAPCIS email forum and also he has written to me about the problem. Roger had explained to me in his most recent email to me that TAPCIS is a DOS email program which was written only for people who use CompuServe. According to Roger the program works only with DOS. He has given me permission to forward our private correspondence to the Arachne List. The material is on topic. Those of you who use both Arachne and PINE might be very interested. Sam Heywood P.S. I don't think any alleged glitches in the matrix will ever be convicted in this honorable court as long as the court continues to disallow the introduction of spectral evidence. For those of you who might not know what spectral evidence is, and about how convincing it is for securing convictions, I would suggest you conduct a google search on Cotton Mather. ------- begin forwarded correspondence -------- From: "Samuel W. Heywood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Organization: Arachne Fan Club Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 06:36:21 -0500 X-Mailer: Arachne V1.70;rev.3 To: Roger Turk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Tapcis Message as b64? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 22:17:02 -0400, you wrote: > Sam, > After a long delay, I think that I finally got a response about why a TAPCIS > message appeared as base64 for you. > Roger Turk Roger: I figured out what really happened. I'm sorry that I forgot to get back to you about this. The problem is due either to a bug in PINE or a bug in the remote shell server. It has nothing to do with an alleged occasional glitch in the matrix. This type of problem can be reproduced repeatedly. I will explain briefly what the bug does. I don't know what causes the bug and I have no idea of what might could be done to fix it. Here is how the bug behaves, or misbehaves, as it were: When viewing the list of messages in my inbox in PINE I will sometimes open a message which turns out to be just a spam. I can't always judge just from viewing the "From:" and the "Subject:" whether a message is just a spam, but usually I can. After opening a message and seeing that it is just a spam I will return to the message listing and mark the spam message for deletion. After I have first marked all my spams for deletion I will delete them all at once by invoking the "expunge" command in PINE. Then I will start opening my legitimate emails. I have found that in the case where I had opened and viewed a spam message, and even after having marked it for deletion and having expunged it, when I later open a legitimate email I will see the message headers of the legitimate correspondent, but in the message body the content of a previously expunged spam will be displayed. A shocking illusion is seen that a legitimate correspondent is sending me spam. I don't know how this happens, but it does. If I quit PINE and close my connection to the remote server, and then download the messages from the server by using Arachne, all the messages will be displayed with their legitimate content when opened with Arachne. Alternatively I can view the legitimate content of the messages simply by quitting PINE on the remote server and then re-opening PINE and viewing my messages again within PINE. You may forward my description of how the bug behaves and misbehaves to anyone who may be interested. What it be OK with you if I were to forward this private email and my reply to the Arachne List? Regards, Sam P.S. Please tell me what is a TAPCIS message and what the TAPCIS forum is about. > ----Forwarded Message(s)---- > .. > #: 35051 S0/CompuServe Mail [MAIL] > .. > 14-Jul-03 18:38 MST > .. > Sb: Tapcis Message as b64? > .. > Fm: Wayne Habberstad > WayneHabberstad > .. > To: Roger Turk [73527,1356] > Roger, >>> but I think I was responding to a post, not asking a question. > .. > Well, that was certainly true in the Arachne list; but wasn't your > .. > message #1216889 (dated May 28 in the TAPCIS Forum) itself a question? > .. > Actually I would have been really surprised if any of the TAPCIS sysops > .. > had been really able to answer your question there concerning the weird > .. > way PINE showed your message to Sam Heywood in base64-like gibberish. > .. > This sort of problem usually requires specialized email expertise to > .. > figure out. > .. > As it turns out, I think I figured out what caused Mr. Heywood to see > .. > ordinary text as illegible garbage viewing it with PINE. I believe it was > .. > simply a 1-time glitch that occurred with the UNIX server that hosts the > .. > PINE program that caused this; it wouldn't have mattered what message he > .. > was viewing then--*anything* would have showed up as gibberish at that > .. > particular instant. That is, the message itself was always fine, which > .. > accounted for it being shown perfectly normally by Arachne. > .. > Wayne/EmailCommunication > .. > Distribution: > .. > To: Roger Turk > [73527,1356] > ----End Forwarded Message(s)---- > You originally wrote: > .. > I first viewed Roger's message quoted above with PINE running on a remote > .. > shell. Then I exited PINE and closed my connection to the remote shell > .. > and I started up Arachne and downloaded all the messages from my mail > .. > server. > .. > When I viewed Roger's message when using PINE the text body appeared > .. > as though it were all inserted base64 code. No part of the text body > .. > was humanly legible. > .. > When I downloaded the message with Arachne and viewed it under Arachne > .. > the message was displayed to me in the same way I would see any other > .. > perfectly normal text email message. > .. > This is the first time anything like this has happened in my viewing > .. > of emails. Normally when I am sent an ordinary text message the > .. > message is displayed by PINE the same way as in Arachne. > .. > What happened? Comments? > .. > Sam Heywood -- This mail was written by user of The Arachne Browser: http://browser.arachne.cz/ ------------ end forwarded correspondence --------- -- This mail was written by user of The Arachne Browser: http://browser.arachne.cz/
