Re: how to handle requests for HTML signatures

["Rajewski, Jonathan" <rajewski () CHAMPLAIN EDU>]

Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!

----- Reply message -----
From: "Charlie Derr" <cderr () SIMONS-ROCK EDU>
Date: Fri, Dec 10, 2010 2:34 pm
Subject: [SECURITY] how to handle requests for HTML signatures
To: "SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU" <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>

Thanks so very much to all who replied, it's all been quite helpful.  I'm requesting further clarification on a single
point below though.

On 12/09/2010 06:11 PM, Julian Y. Koh wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- <destroyed by snipping, sorry about that>
> Hash: SHA1
> <snip>
>
> Embedded images are pure evil and can be a total pain to deal with
> depending on the email client.

Julian,

When I read the above, I assumed that you'd meant "Remotely embedded images" but it seems worth trying to confirm/refute
that directly.

Are you talking about embedding images locally in the sent email?

My own opinion is that images that load from remote websites are far more evil than images embedded locally in the
email.  But I want to make sure I'm not missing an important point here.

If there's a good reason to want to have the images remotely fetched via the web (rather than embedding them in the
email), we can at least host a set of icons for this purpose on a college website, but I'd need to be convinced why
that's better than crafting an HTML email signature that is entirely self-contained.

> I'm starting to recognize top posting as a necessary evil given the
> realities of reading email on mobile devices, but full quoting combined
> with top posting is just lazy.  :):)

and so I've snipped (and now the meta-conversation is providing everyone with more contentless content, but oh well...)

> Having said all of that, if you don't help people with their signatures,
> they'll just get someone else to do it, so you might as well take the
> opportunity to get them to show _some_ measure of restraint, because that
> someone else almost certainly won't.

Very very well put.
     thanks again,
           ~c

<more snippage>