Small suggestion for future Oort

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

There has always been some confusion surrounding Wide reply (F).  It
is a nice feature as it stands but can lead to bad results, if the
user is not observant.

I get bit by it fairly often... and it can have bad results in this
way.

You grow accustomed to using `F'  for all replies, at least I have.
And justifiably so since many of my groups contain a `to-address' in G p
(group params) 

However when that param is lacking, I send unwanted Cc's fairly often.

In one case it could have had disastrous results.  I mailed a tmp passwd
to someone and didn't notice the Cc in the original message to a mail
list.  Naturally the passwd was posted on the list as well as going
to the intended recipient.  Had I not noticed and had that list been a
big public one, it could have led to a root compromise.

I'm aware of the dangers of sending a passwd in clear text, but it
should be fairly safe, if you keep a tight machine and are not seeing
signs of someone reading your mail.  And it was a temp passwd that
would at best get someone logged in as a restricted user.  Unless that
someone was an experienced hack, it should not result in great harm.

However had I posted it on a busy public group, the chances of
attracting an experienced `black hat' would be far greater.

I set gnus to show all outgoing headers long ago for this very reason
but apparently, just having that Cc visible in the composition buffer
still isn't enough to always get my attention.

I want a feature that queries me about the Cc field on sending.
Something like the warning you get with over 79 chars on a line.  Or
when you left the subject field empty.

It could be toggled on or off.  And would stop the sending action
and ask the user if they want the Cc field as is (with a display in
echo area).  RET would be `no' or blank, or press up-arrow key for the
default (as is) then RET.

People who use `Cc' a lot could turn it off or it could be off by default.

When `on', the query  would only happen when the Cc field was not blank.