[Suzuran]

On the subject of that last item, it is to my amusement that modern internet scanners are completely confused by a 1970s operating system. They record a "hit" when they find an open telnet port, but then get stuck because there is no recognizable prompt after the system banner message prints. They find a running FTP server but get confused that it does not use recognizable filesystem semantics. They get even more confused when it ignores passwords because the system has none. By all rules and tenets of security doctrine this system should be the internet equivalent to a smoking crater, instantly and utterly destroyed by advanced security threats beyond the imaginations of its creators.

PS: It is also amusing that an unmodified 1970s SMTP server can still deliver messages to gmail and receive responses back, given only the provision of a SPF record. Sadly, the coming mandatory requirement for DKIM will finally make this no longer a possibility.

PPS: It is much less amusing to attempt to read the gmail user's responses on a terminal.

[lxgr]

Surprisingly, as I discovered earlier today, Gmail (still? newly?) supports sending plaintext-only messages!

[Suzuran]

Really? How?

[lxgr]

"Plain text mode", hiding in the "kebab menu" (i.e. the three vertically stacked dots) on the bottom of the message composition window. It even seems to stay on as a default once activated!

Very useful for the few times I actually need to send email to mailing lists with strong opinions about newfangled MIME multipart messages :)

[Suzuran]

Yes, that's very useful, thanks for pointing that out.