WHAT IS THIS?
- todflog1
- Posts: 169
- Joined: April 4th, 2005, 8:40 am
- Location: St. Louis MO/Black Hawk CO
WHAT IS THIS?
WHAT IS THIS?
���
I get these symbols occasionally in my incoming email, The are in mail from various senders so it must be on my end. At times there are so many the email is hard to read.
What's up?
Tod
���
I get these symbols occasionally in my incoming email, The are in mail from various senders so it must be on my end. At times there are so many the email is hard to read.
What's up?
Tod
Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
- tanstaafl
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Re: WHAT IS THIS?
I suspect they're 8 bit characters that you normally don't see, due to trying to display messages using a character set that you aren't configured to support. Take a look at the Content-Type: header using view -> message source to see what character set the message says it uses. Usually you get messages using iso-8859-1, windows-1252, ASCII, or UTF-8.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
You can fiddle with "view -> character encoding" to try to properly display the message. However, I normally don't bother since I usually only run into that problem when I get spam from asia.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
You can fiddle with "view -> character encoding" to try to properly display the message. However, I normally don't bother since I usually only run into that problem when I get spam from asia.
- todflog1
- Posts: 169
- Joined: April 4th, 2005, 8:40 am
- Location: St. Louis MO/Black Hawk CO
Re: WHAT IS THIS?
They only come in groups like this: � they don't seem to be individual markers.
Tod
Tod
Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
- tanstaafl
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Re: WHAT IS THIS?
Please post the contents of the Content-Type: header and the source for a sentence that has both gibberish and something legible.
- todflog1
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- Joined: April 4th, 2005, 8:40 am
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Re: WHAT IS THIS?
tanstaafl wrote:Please post the contents of the Content-Type: header and the source for a sentence that has both gibberish and something legible.
I have deleted the emails containing the symbols. I'll have to wait until I receive another to follow your instructions.
I will continue this thread then.
Thanks,
Tod
Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
- todflog1
- Posts: 169
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- Location: St. Louis MO/Black Hawk CO
Re: WHAT IS THIS?
Tanstaafl,
Here is what you asked for. Incidentally my Character Encoding seems to default to Unicode (UFT-8)
Content Type: multipart/related; type="multipart/alternative"; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_00AC_01C8E586.821D5D40"
Copy of part of message:

----- Original Message -----
Subject: Fwd: Best Sign Ever
> oh oh.....
> �
> Best sign ever
Here is what you asked for. Incidentally my Character Encoding seems to default to Unicode (UFT-8)
Content Type: multipart/related; type="multipart/alternative"; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_00AC_01C8E586.821D5D40"
Copy of part of message:

----- Original Message -----
Subject: Fwd: Best Sign Ever
> oh oh.....
> �
> Best sign ever
Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
- todflog1
- Posts: 169
- Joined: April 4th, 2005, 8:40 am
- Location: St. Louis MO/Black Hawk CO
Re: WHAT IS THIS?
tanstaafl wrote:Please post the contents of the Content-Type: header and the source for a sentence that has both gibberish and something legible.
Here is more:
Content Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="part1_c25.3da42a29.35acefdb_boundary"
Sample Text:
��������������� Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:
� � � � � � � � 1) Consumer confidence plummet;
� � � � � � � � 2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon;
� � � � � � � � 3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
� � � � � � � � 4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity�value ��������������������� evaporate (stock�& �mutual fund losses);
� � � � � � � � 5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars
Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
- tanstaafl
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Re: WHAT IS THIS?
Wierd, it doesn't look like a simple case of the wrong character set, I can't think of any reason for the repetitive sequences of characters such as � .
Does this occur in messages from individuals you know, newsletters, or spam? If its mainly from one web sites newsletter please post the URL for where you signup for it.
Does this occur in messages from individuals you know, newsletters, or spam? If its mainly from one web sites newsletter please post the URL for where you signup for it.
-
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Re: WHAT IS THIS?
tanstaafl: Could this be some weird representation of a non-breaking space or something?
Look at the places where it occurs within the text, the others are in white-space areas.
Look at the places where it occurs within the text, the others are in white-space areas.
- todflog1
- Posts: 169
- Joined: April 4th, 2005, 8:40 am
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Re: WHAT IS THIS?
It is only occurring in email from my friends. All instances are from AOL users but, as I said, only occasionly.
Tod
Tod
Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
- tanstaafl
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Re: WHAT IS THIS?
rsx11m :
Interesting idea.
� in ISO/IEC 8859-1 (Latin-1) would seem to be 00EF , 00BF, 00BD. That seems too long for any of the encodings I can find on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-breaking_space other than SGML/HTML, which it doesn't appear to match.
todflog1 :
I'm not familiar with AOL webmail quirks/features. I've occasionally used a AIM IMAP account (same mail server as AOL IMAP but less restrictions and less AOL speciifc functionality) to send messages to some of my other accounts and have never noticed anything like that.
Interesting idea.
� in ISO/IEC 8859-1 (Latin-1) would seem to be 00EF , 00BF, 00BD. That seems too long for any of the encodings I can find on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-breaking_space other than SGML/HTML, which it doesn't appear to match.
todflog1 :
I'm not familiar with AOL webmail quirks/features. I've occasionally used a AIM IMAP account (same mail server as AOL IMAP but less restrictions and less AOL speciifc functionality) to send messages to some of my other accounts and have never noticed anything like that.
- todflog1
- Posts: 169
- Joined: April 4th, 2005, 8:40 am
- Location: St. Louis MO/Black Hawk CO
Re: WHAT IS THIS?
More but different characters from an AOL sender:
Text: Credit Card Fraud Alert
Heads up if you “Pay at the Pump!â€
The price of gas is high enough without the
Content Type:multipart/mixed; boundary="part1_d09.3c5e1fdc.35b00bfd_boundary"
Tod
Text: Credit Card Fraud Alert
Heads up if you “Pay at the Pump!â€
The price of gas is high enough without the
Content Type:multipart/mixed; boundary="part1_d09.3c5e1fdc.35b00bfd_boundary"
Tod
Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
-
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Re: WHAT IS THIS?
There should be another Content-Type entry further down in View > Message Source, looking like
Also, look into your settings in Tools > Options > Display > Formatting tab > Fonts dialog. What is your default encoding (lower half of that window) and are any of the "default character encoding" boxes checked underneath that? If yes, uncheck them, as they would prevent a proper detection of the encoding other than your default one.
which would be of interest to identify the encoding. Those may be non-ASCII quotes seen in your last example, possibly mangled by UTF-8/ISO-8859 conversions...tanstaafl wrote:Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Also, look into your settings in Tools > Options > Display > Formatting tab > Fonts dialog. What is your default encoding (lower half of that window) and are any of the "default character encoding" boxes checked underneath that? If yes, uncheck them, as they would prevent a proper detection of the encoding other than your default one.
- todflog1
- Posts: 169
- Joined: April 4th, 2005, 8:40 am
- Location: St. Louis MO/Black Hawk CO
Re: WHAT IS THIS?
I must not be looking in the wrong place. There is no "Display" after tools>options. The only choices I have are: Main, Tabs, Content, Feeds, Privacy, Security, and Advanced; no "Display".
Tod
Tod
Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
- Daifne
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Re: WHAT IS THIS?
You're looking at Firefox's Tools menu. I WILL NOT admit to how many times I've done that...