JC) if there's a claim that plain text somehow disallows links, then it
would appear to be false. (JC
My claims included the following, which if we had better formatting options
you might not need to merely speculate about, but simply quote. Here's what
happens if you try to cut and paste some of my claims:
* include original URLs in your content without having many of them
get broken by newlines
* tinified URLs invite people to click links without being able to
check where the links go
* paste or quote HTML content without losing its links and formatting
First, note how what I originally sent as a nice bulleted list in HTML now
gets quoted above with annoying linebreaks and no outdent.
Now, to test my first claim, let's try an experiment. Let's see how many
URLs in the following paragraph -- all guaranteed to work in HTML format --
are still successfully clickable when ca-liberty is finished unformatting it
for your mail client:
The unofficial list of candidates in Santa Clara County for the June 3
election is at
http://www.sccgov.org/SCC/docs/Registrar%20of%20Voters%20(DEP)/June%203,%202
008%20Unofficial%20Candidate%20List%20(3-6-08).pdf. The calendar for this
election cycle is at
http://www.sccgov.org/SCC/docs/Registrar%20of%20Voters%20(DEP)/attachments/J
une%203%202008%20Abbreviated%20Election%20Calendar.pdf. California Super
Tuesday results are at
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/Returns/pres/lib/all.htm.
Note Eric Garris's comment at
http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/02/06/did-ron-paul-win-the-calif-lp-primary/
#comment-482818 about how to find out about write-in votes in the LPCA's
Super Tuesday primary.
To verify my second claim, here are tinified URLs for three of the above
four links. One of the four links doesn't send you to any of the above
destinations, but rather to a PayPal phishing site. Quick, can you tell
which link is the bad one?
http://snipurl.com/21a8s
http://snipurl.com/21a8p
http://snipurl.com/21a8t
http://snipurl.com/21a92
Note that phishing isn't even the most dangerous part of using minified
URLs. Used in combination with a exploitable security hole like those
frequently found on major sites (including even Yahoo), a minified URL can
run arbitrary Javascript and do things like steal your cookies for that
site, and then redirect you to where you thought you were going, without you
even noticing that anything suspicious had happened.
To verify my third claim, I will now paste some HTML containing links to a
bunch of LP literature. Check whether any of the links get through to
ca-liberty:
The 2004 Libertarian Viewpoint LP pamphlet
The 2006 New Vision For America LP pamphlet
The New York LP Trifold pamphlet
The 2000 Harry Browne Trifold pamphlet
The Texas LP Short and Simple pamphlet
The LP On Today's Issues on lp.org
The Official LP Program as of 2004
The 2000-2003 LP National Campaign Platform
The Vermont LP Platform
The California LP Program
P.S. When did you make the archives of ca-liberty private? Why would you
ever want to make it so that people cannot send links to ca-liberty
postings for reading by non-members?
