From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <00de01c05412$4832b0c0$97036887@cs.belllabs.com>
From: "rob pike" <rob@plan9.bell-labs.com>
To: <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
References: <20001121193744.53C18199F7@mail.cse.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: [9fans] mime
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Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 18:25:05 -0500
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> Seriously though.  What brain damaged piece of dog
> excrement program would throw away the 8th bit of every
> byte in today's world?  Smtp's requirement for
> 7 bit clean was acknowledgement of systems of the time
> that really did push messages across serial lines with
> parity and/or used the 8th bit in mail files as a signalling
> channel.  However, I really don't know of any such these
> days.  Every smtp I call up seems perfectly happy to pass
> on all 8 bits despite what the RFC says.


Brian Ried is the source of the brain damage. Maybe it's
Brian damage.  He insisted on making the DEC gateways
clear the 8th bit in a stupefying bid to make everyone
honest.  He thought, I guess, that the computing world
didn't have enough complexity yet.  I hope he's happy
now.

-rob