Subject: No Mail Via HTTP Web Pages, Mail Rejected. From: HTTPS_sender@ Sender: HTTPS_sender@ I append http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/std/no_https_mail.txt Resend by Email, Not Web please, else you will not be read ! If you sent eg: "To read this message securely, please click this link: https://...." No, I do Not read email by HTTPS (or HTTP) ! Resend as proper email ! (PGP/GPG suffices for encryption.) HTTPS mail is Not Necessary, Sensible, or Acceptable: Recipients need a constant live internet connection to read HTTPS mail. No problem for recipients in large buildings with many employees & constantly manned/ maintained gateway + firewall, But... Recipients in small offices, home offices, small professional groups eg lawyers & architects offices etc, will have to connect to the net each time they are burdened by HTTPS encumbered mail from you. Recipients may not want to waste their time on modem dial delay for you. Recipients may not want extra expense of phone or Wavelan + cell/mobile phone dial charges. Recipients in small eg flat rate DSL connected offices may not want to risk more constant exposure to the Internet just to read HTTPS mail. They may well appreciate not having to trust their small economy budgeted non optimally configured gateway/ firewall to withstand higher net exposure time. Recipients may not have instant net access if travelling, & catching up on incoming mail backlog on a laptop/PDA in a taxi, table in a park/ restaurant, or non public net equipped airport lounge, train, or hotel lobby. Laptop may fail to negotiate connection configuration. Recipient may prefer his/her laptop/PDA fetches mail when connectivity is available, for him/ her to read later when time & privacy (but perhaps no longer connectivity) is available. Transatlantic liners (ships) have frequent web connectivity failure (as tested by jes@ in 2004). Easier to read mail off line there too, than on line. HTTPS mail is Less deliverable than real email, as it requires complete end to end connection, with no (transient or longer term) failing links, whereas real email's store & forward nature, (assisted by MX records, &/or multiple recipient mbox hosts) allows for relay nodes &/or recipients to be intermittently unavailable, & yet for mail to still arrive. HTTPS Is more sensitive to instantaneous Internet traffic (as well as server load) at the moment recipient wants to read mail, so HTTPS offer slower screen access to mail (particularly large email & enclosures), whereas proper email can get sent at lower priority, not competing for bandwidth with live traffic, (eg web & remote logins etc), & still arrive Sooner on recipient hard disc, & ready to read faster off disc than off some loaded communications link. Recipient needs a `fat' web browser to support https access, which consumes ram, disc & processor power, perhaps no great problem on a desk's tower chassis, (merely a waste), but a problem on a small light weak processor ( low current ) device (laptop/PDA/phone) powered by battery. HTTPS based mail indicates corporate failure to think. Companies that appear less than competent on the Internet probably attract more internet attacks, intrusion probes, etc, as the company gives an impression of likely vulnerability. Companies often don't even realise they advertise incompetence, until warned by an outside observer. Advertising incompetence is an invitation to be attacked or probed or used by the opposition, the media, or share holder groups, to exhibit the current employees & managers combined self advertised corporate incompetence. Often the HTTPS sender is not even in the IT department, so not responsible, but they should at least pass on this free warning to those responsible for fixing things. Other indicators of corporate failure can include eg: A company that sends https mail, yet also thin film metal screens its windows to block mobile phones. Which disrupts visitor's capability to access similar HTTPS based mail a visitor's employing company may have equally sent the visitor for collection via cell/ mobile/ handy + WaveLAN + HTTPS. Mail headers showing forwarding hosts not just with wrong time zones, & hours, but also drifting clocks with the minutes way off too, (when they could be freely auto synchronised), making bounce debugging harder, when there is a mail problem in the sender's network. If your company might prefer to improve its Internet & Intranet technologies, please tell your manager &/or IT department, we offer professional computer consultancy http://www.berklix.com http://www.berklix.com Computer Consultancy http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/cv/ My Resume - English & German http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/contact/ Contact - German for business also OK. http://www.berklix.com/free/ Free Software http://www.berklix.org Free Organisations & Clubs