StillSmart

Sometimes the best of intentions get screwed by language and technology. The following started off an email that arrived in my mailbox today....

"-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Dear Mailing List Subscriber,

It has been an exciting year for us.........."

WTF?

Apologies to Michael and Judith at SD

AM

Dear Aidan, sorry I don't understand.

Sorry, I don't understand neither. Aidan, did you expect a Christmas poem?

Sorry guys, this was intended as a jibe at software technology like Mail Merge that doesn't always do what it's supposed to and not at SD or you

Normally, the header, "BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----Hash: SHA1" is not included in the body of the message seen by the recipient and "... Mailing List Subscriber" is normally a place holder replaced, by the software, with the first name of the person(s) the mass message is being sent to.

It's nuance more than anything but I find it funny...I'm wired that way

AM

Aidan, that's easily explained:

I've sent that one as regular e-mail, not as newsletter through our shop system. All of our regular e-mails are PGP signed, and for that it's correct that BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----Hash: SHA1 shows up in the message body itself, not in the e-mail header.

In this case the intro Dear Mailing List Subscriber was not a place holder, but the actual intended introduction, because I've just copied over our list of newsletter subscribers and the e-mail client does not auto-replace the name in the e-mail body.

I thought it should be obvious that that message wasn't a regular newsletter.

And as conclusion for anybody wondering what this is all about, here the full message:

---

Dear Mailing List Subscriber,

It has been an exciting year for us, especially with the start of our new online shop, for which we hope you like what can be seen so far.

Herewith we would like to inform you that our extended Christmas holidays are about to start soon, which means that our company remains closed from 24th December until 14th January. You can order in the meantime, shipping takes place after the mentioned date. We are still hard at work to fulfill orders to be shipped before the holidays begin.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
May 2015 exceed all expectations!

Greetings,

--
M.A. Judith Sperandio & IEng Michael Sperandio
General Manager of StillDragon Europe

Guys, Chill! It was only a little joke. Apologies if it came across as a serious comment.

AM

oh, I did not feel bad about it, I just did not understand - Just Merry X-mas to you - may the spirits be with you!