Re: MIME based remailing commands

[Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com>]

    Date:         Wed, 08 Feb 95 16:37:06 CST
    From: xpat@vm1.spcs.umn.edu
    
    I say take the remail stuff out of the header altogether,
    MIME or not.

If by this, you mean to follow more of the model used by
remail@extropia.wimsey.com, then I completely agree.  What travels in
the clear should not *require* any header data.  It could even include
misleading headers.  A remailer should be able to accept mail which is
encrypted for it.  It can then decode the encrypted part and discard
the rest.  The format of the decrypted message could be whatever works
best for remailers which might or might not have anything at all to do
with MIME.

OTOH, if you are going to have information in the clear to support
naive users or whatever, put the information in the header.  The whole
purpose of headers is for auxiliary information about the message and
its delivery.  The body is for the message itself.

With MIME's approach of making every piece of information as big and
clunky as possible, I'm mildly suprised that it hasn't done away with
headers altogether :-)

--
Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com>      Please do not send electronic junk mail!
  Lehman Brothers Inc.
  3 World Financial Center  "The more laws and order are made prominent, the
  New York, NY  10285-1100   more thieves and robbers there will be." --Lao Tzu