Re: @ SCOS Message Format ?

On 24/02/2025 09:51, David Entwistle wrote:

On Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:55:41 +0000, Richard Heathfield wrote:
 

I did. I found no articles under your name in the current feed for that
group.
  I have found nothing of the kind in that group.
>

 Oh dear. Stephan found them. Perhaps your reader. ;)

My reader is Thunderbird.
My server is Eternal September.

they should start at:
 Subject: Character Test
Message-ID: <vpeakb$cgsc$1@dont-email.me>

They don't. I see no articles from you in the current feed, which purports to go back to 2017.

If your newsreader turns valid C into sad faces, your newsreader is
broken. Solution: download a newsreader that works.

 Okay, but I've now used a couple of popular newsgroup readers, and with
default settings I don't see valid C code in the reader message display of
either.

What C code? Perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes.
I am not talking about any specific C code in any specific message. I am talking about newsreaders that could corrupt valid C code by turning valid syntax into emoticons. You seem to think that such corruption would be justifiable. I disagree.

My concern is that if we get three new human readers of sci.crypt, keen to
learn, but relatively inexperienced, and as an introduction we post a
SCOS-encrypted ciphertext as a challenge, and then ask each how many
characters are there in the ciphertext, we will likely get three different
answers.

I consider that to be unlikely, since the only way it could happen is that two of them have broken newsreaders (and, for there to be /three/ answers, they'd have to be broken in two different ways).

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.

 Sorry for the frustration - I recognize I must be causing it and it pains
me. However, I feel I am speaking on behalf of the other new and less-
experienced readers and potential readers.

These new and less experienced readers presumably all use new and less experienced newsreaders.

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.

 Pan's and Thunderbird's whim... I'll think about it.

I have found no problem with Thunderbird corrupting text. Can you post an example that my reader (115.18.0 (64-bit)) will mangle in the way you claim?
--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within