[ih] Meta: attachment policy (was Re: clever usc creation)

Sat Jul 18 15:09:13 PDT 2026

ANALOGY: email (and to a further extent The Extant Internet itself) "works"
so good (or even "just") "good" enough in that it's not gotten so/to "bad"
enough for a "Network" (1976) Howard Beale:

"... I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are
bad... So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your
chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and
stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO
TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' moment"

put another way: email (and to a further extent The Extant Internet itself)
is not summarily "broken enough" that it has become a PRIORITY or even an
ABSOLUTE NECESSITY to be "fixed" since it just seems to "work JUST enough"
-- most/enough of the time -- to get by...

these things you speak of (and more), are a "nuisance" -- to be sure --
they are not (apparently) so much of a "nuisance" that enough people are AS
MAD AS HELL (ENOUGH) THAT "THEY" ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE"
(amongst all the other "important" things that are being summarily "worked
on") to effectuate a "fix"

yours truly's decades of observational 2 cents,

g

On Sat, Jul 18, 2026 at 12:51 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Speaking of "walking the walk".... but on a more serious note.
>
> Over the last decade or two, I've suggested, several times, to several
> ISOC administrations, that ISOC "walk the walk" with email by serving as
> a prominent example of "how to do email right".   That of course might
> require policies to possibly be changed, technical flaws to be
> addressed, educational efforts, and even perhaps governments' actions.
>
> Most Internet users today likely experience things like phishing
> attacks, emails with forged sources, and other such effects that make
> email untrustworthy in their views.   Most of the Internet users have no
> idea how to protect themselves from such attacks.  Most regulatory and
> government authorities seem to have no idea what, if anything, they can
> do about it.
>
>  From a historical perspective, there has been lots of work in the past
> to create technologies that address such problems.  In the email world,
> that includes things like digital signatures, S/MIME, DMARC, and many
> others.
>
> But few users of the Internet use, or perhaps even know how to use, or
> that they should use, such technologies.  Personally, all of my emails
> are digitally signed, but I rarely see signatures on incoming email.
> Perhaps that's because few know how to use it.  Perhaps it just doesn't
> work.  Perhaps it has serious flaws, such as the fact that passing
> through a "forum" such as this one invalidates a digital signature,
> making it ineffective and looking like a forgery.  Perhaps no one thinks
> it's a problem to address.
>
> My suggestion over the past decades has been that ISOC use email as a
> vehicle for demonstrating how to Do Email Right.  I.e., to show others
> how to "walk the walk", ISOC could lead down the walk, show users how to
> do it right, find the cracks and potholes in the walkway, and perhaps
> task or convince IETF to fix them.  A good start would be to have every
> official email from ISOC appear in all users' mailboxes in a way that
> they can trust it actually came from ISOC.  Perhaps set up the
> technology and processes so that every member of ISOC can send
> authenticated email.
>
> With all the work that went in to developing such technologies, going as
> far back as the 1970s, personally I don't understand why nothing seems
> to have happened, to at least make email more trustworthy.   Anyone know
> more?
>
> /Jack Haverty
> (my digital signature is probably invalid when you get this; you'll just
> have to trust that I actually did write it...)
>
> On 7/2/26 21:19, Carl Malamud via Internet-history wrote:
> > Well, if we’re going to walk the walk and do Internet History the right
> way
> > we should go totally 7-bit.  I vote that in addition to attachments, we
> ban
> > Unicode.
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 2, 2026 at 9:10 PM Andrew Sullivan via Internet-history <
> > internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> While there are doubtless many issues with Internet Society systems that
> >> can be laid at their (and depending on the age, my) feet, this is just a
> >> matter of list policy. AFAIK this list doesn’t allow attachments.
> >> Attachments make it through Internet Society mail systems just fine.
> >>
> >> Best regards ,
> >>
> >> A
> >> —
> >> Andrew Sullivan
> >> Please excuse my clumbsy thums
> >>
> >>> On Jul 2, 2026, at 19:36, Karl Auerbach via Internet-history <
> >> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >>> Well apparently image attachments don't make it through  the ISOC mail
> >> systems.
> >>> Here is a link to the photo I mentioned...
> >>>
> >>> https://cavebear.com/images/misc/steve-and-eve.jpg
> >>>
> >>>> On 7/2/26 12:20 PM, Karl Auerbach via Internet-history wrote:
> >>>> I am so very thrilled to see Steve Casner in this collection.
> >>>>
> >>>> He and I worked very closely together for several years and after that
> >> he and his wife Karen used to come over to our house for gatherings and
> to
> >> attend plays at Santa Cruz Shakespeare.
> >>>> I never had an conversation with Steve Casner that did not leave me
> >> more educated and informed than I had been before.  In my mind there is
> a
> >> tie for the prize of "nicest person on the Internet" between Steve
> Casner
> >> and John Romkey.
> >>>> I don't know if it is appropriate on this list to include a photo (Of
> >> Steve C and Eve S - [and Dave Crocker and I believe the back of Bob
> >> Hinden's head] , but here it goes...  (This was taken at the Computer
> >> History Museum event for Danny Cohen.)
> >>>>          --karl--
> >>>>
> >>>>> On 7/2/26 8:01 AM, vinton cerf via Internet-history wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>
> https://viterbischool.usc.edu/news/2026/06/for-americas-250th-we-created-commemorative-stamps-of-trojan-builders/
> >>>>> v
> >>> --
> >>> Internet-history mailing list
> >>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> >>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >>> -
> >>> Unsubscribe:
> >>
> https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/9b6ef0621638436ab0a9b23cb0668b0b?The%20list%20to%20be%20unsubscribed%20from=Internet-history
> >>
> >> --
> >> Internet-history mailing list
> >> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> >> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >> -
> >> Unsubscribe:
> >>
> https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/9b6ef0621638436ab0a9b23cb0668b0b?The%20list%20to%20be%20unsubscribed%20from=Internet-history
> >>
>
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> -
> Unsubscribe:
> https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/9b6ef0621638436ab0a9b23cb0668b0b?The%20list%20to%20be%20unsubscribed%20from=Internet-history
>

-- 
Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
living as The Truth is True