Re: @ SCOS Message Format ?

On 23/02/2025 10:19, David Entwistle wrote:

On Sat, 22 Feb 2025 08:57:02 +0000, Richard Heathfield wrote:
 

Assumes "facts" not in evidence.

 Quite right to ask. :)
 You are probably correct in a lot of what you say, and I accept I may be
wrong in much of what I say. Particularly emulation, maybe that isn't the
cause of my problem.

I'd have thought it unlikely.

I've posted some test sequences of the SCOS character set to uk.telecom.
Feel free to have a look using your preferred reader.

I did. I found no articles under your name in the current feed for that group.

I've concentrated on
the sequences where I've noticed I have a problem. There may be others I
haven't thought about. They set off as a tidy column of numbers, letters
and punctuation marks that are taken from the SCOS character set. I have
included back tick, for completeness.

I have found nothing of the kind in that group.

 I've then read the posts using Pan and Thunderbird. Both exhibit some
issues which would prohibit successful decryption in certain
circumstances.
 Some of the sequence of characters that could be interpreted as emoticons
get removed and are replaced by unicode characters (or something else) and
displayed as an emoticon in both readers. In both cases the underlying
characters never reach the reader's display, so any attempt at
decrytption, using the ciphertext as presented, will fail. This includes:
 :) – Smiley face
:( – Sad face
;) – Wink
:'( – Crying

I can make three of these (the last three) into valid C code:
a=b?c:(d+e);
for(;;)
f=g?h:'(';
If your newsreader turns valid C into sad faces, your newsreader is broken. Solution: download a newsreader that works.
Coupled with the other formatting issues make it feel a bit

of a uphill task, which is easy to avoid if we accept some restriction on
the character set.

I don't think it's necessary. Working newsreaders are easy to find.

 Please don't feel I getting at you over this.

I don't... and this is the main reason for my reply. I want you to be absolutely clear about this, David: your articles are unfailingly polite, and they ooze good faith. I will always take good faith at face value, regardless of how much you bicker. Bickering is, after all, the essence of Usenet, yes?
I will not deny that I find it a little frustrating that you have continually ignored my substantive point, which is that you are attempting to fix the wrong software. But a reasonable man is open to persuasion, and you do strike me as being a reasonable man, so I live in hope.

I'd like to take a greater
part in sci.crypt, but I don't think we're all seeing the same things,
which makes participation difficult.

The fix is simple. Get a newsreader that doesn't mangle articles, not least because much of what is posted here is source code, and an attempt to change programming language syntax to indulge Pan's corrupting whim is not likely to succeed.
--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
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