[comp.mail.elm] [encode] bug?

phil@wubios.wustl.edu (J. Philip Miller) (02/04/89)

Frequently (but not always) when I receive mail that has been [encode]'ed and
supply the correct key, only the first line is correctly decrypted.

ELM 2.1 PL1

Any ideas?

-phil miller     phil@wubios.WUstl.edu

ron@vaxnix.tandy.COM (Ron Light) (02/06/89)

In article <299@wubios.wustl.edu> phil@wubios.UUCP (J. Philip Miller) writes:
>
>Frequently (but not always) when I receive mail that has been [encode]'ed and
>supply the correct key, only the first line is correctly decrypted.
>
>ELM 2.1 PL1
>
>Any ideas?
>


I have seen this same thing happen (I use [encode] excessively) and I know for
a *fact* that it is in the encoding stage that the error occurs.  Sending one
[encode] piece of mail to several different machines of different operating
operating systems to various people who use various versions of elm, will cause
*all* of the received mail read by elm 2.1 or elm 1.5 to behave the same,
first line ok, rest is gibberish.

HOWEVER, it appears that the *sender* has to be using *1.5*.  I have not
observed this when the sender is using 2.1

It would be interesting if Mr. Miller could go back to some of these messages
and see if the sending version was restricted to 1.5

phil@wubios.wustl.edu (J. Philip Miller) (02/07/89)

In article <10334@vaxnix.tandy.COM> ron@vaxnix.UUCP (Ron Light) writes:
>In article <299@wubios.wustl.edu> phil@wubios.UUCP (J. Philip Miller) writes:
>>
>>Frequently (but not always) when I receive mail that has been [encode]'ed and
>>supply the correct key, only the first line is correctly decrypted.
>I have seen this same thing happen (I use [encode] excessively) and I know for
>a *fact* that it is in the encoding stage that the error occurs.  Sending one
>[encode] piece of mail to several different machines of different operating
>operating systems to various people who use various versions of elm, will cause
>*all* of the received mail read by elm 2.1 or elm 1.5 to behave the same,
>first line ok, rest is gibberish.
>
>HOWEVER, it appears that the *sender* has to be using *1.5*.  I have not
>observed this when the sender is using 2.1
>
>It would be interesting if Mr. Miller could go back to some of these messages
>and see if the sending version was restricted to 1.5

Close, but no cigar!

It has failed on mail sent from this machine, to this machine so that means
that all transactions were on ELM 2.1 PL1

We are running a Sun 3/260 with SUN/OS 4.0 if that makes any difference.

There is an idea expressed by one sender that they had their backspace set
wrong - could having a ^h in the text of the message have anything to do with
it?

This it is clear that although it may be happening at the sender level, it
happens in 2.1 as well.

Is there a way to extract the encoded text by hand and decode it not using the
elm software?

-phil
-- 
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
J. Philip Miller - Div of Biostat - Washington Univ Medical School
phil@wubios.WUstl.edu - Internet        phil@wubios.wustl - bitnet
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