[Mailman-Users] automatic decode of base64 text/plain

[Mark Sapiro]

On 11/08/2016 01:47 PM, Karl Berry wrote:
> 
> I wonder if it would be feasible for mailman to automatically decode
> such back into normal text, at least for the archives. Maybe also for
> sending out, though clearly that is more intrusive.


Mailman already does this for the archives, at least for a plain text
message body, but not for scrubbed attachments. Do you see cases where
this isn't done?


> I could also imagine this being done at the MTA level, but that seems
> even more likely to be too intrusive.


Neither Mailman nor the MTA can do this for messages to be sent. The
message part is base64 encoded in the first place because it contains or
could contain non-ascii characters (utf-8 in your example fragment)
which can't be included in message parts "on the wire" if the message is
going to be acceptable to all MTAs.

Plus, such recoding would just add one more way in which Mailman would
break DKIM or PGP signatures.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan