[X4U] Re: hijacking threads

[keith_w]

Stroller wrote:
> 
> On 21 Jan 2007, at 14:10, keith_w wrote:
>> Stroller wrote:
>>> On 20 Jan 2007, at 14:06, jelmore at elmoredesign.com wrote:
>>>> Looking at a message source, I don't see any header that would indicate
>>>> that a subject belongs to a thread with a different subject. So how is
>>>> that done?

>>>  From the message you replied to:
>>> In-Reply-To:     <20070119222529.1611387305 at smtp.mac.com>
>>> References:     <cf4239a3a677dfe8f96b394b441e507d at comcast.net> 
>>> <515A4AB4-10D2-4E5A-9111-26B194CED62A at earthlink.net> 
>>> <6E0F93B2-421E-41FC-936A-8BBD7C224063 at mac.com> 
>>> <13fd79f6e16d5556fd2c34ffb9731619 at comcast.net> 
>>> <C668A83E-56DC-47F1-BEFF-E2FF57EBDC62 at speakeasy.net> 
>>> <20070119222529.1611387305 at smtp.mac.com>

>> When I click on any of the above colored links, all I get is a fresh
>> email/message 'Compose' window, with that link address in the "To" line.
>> The same thing happens to all of the links you include above.
>> keith

> Hi,
> 
> Sorry - these are not links. They are lines from the headers of the 
> email message that jelmore replied to. I think it's simply because the 
> message IDs have ats ("@") in them that your mail program (and prolly 
> mine) are underlining them and treating them as email links. That's ok, 
> really - your mail client wouldn't normally expect to be seeing message 
> Ids in the body of the message (and of course it hides the ones in the 
> headers of the message).
> 
> If you look at the long headers or raw source of Tim Collier's message 
> (the one he wrote at 20 January 2007 13:33:19 GMT) then you would see 
> those lines amongst all the rest. Sorry, I don't know how to display the 
> full raw headers in the Mozilla mail client (Thunderbird?), but there'll 
> be an option for it somewhere.
> 
> Perhaps if I include some more of the headers they'll make a little more 
> sense:

        [long header info text deleted, for space saving.]

>> That being the case for me, how is the following statement true?

>>> From these one can ascertain all replies previously made in a thread.

> Perhaps it's more accurate to say "one's _email client_ can ascertain 
> all replies previously made in a thread", but the important part is that 
> each email message we send has a "Message-Id: " header line (I think 
> this is generated by the SMTP server). If you click on reply-to a 
> message then a "proper" mail program adds that message ID to the 
> references lines then it's easy to figure out the order of messages, and 
> even to build a tree-like display of threading. Including all the 
> previous message IDs in the references lines allows the email program to 
> build the tree even if some of the messages are missing (due to the 
> vagaries of email systems & servers).
> 
> If you ignore the fact that the stuff in the "References: " section 
> looks like links or email addresses this makes perfect sense. Sorry if I 
> haven't explained it very well, tho'.
> 
> Stroller.

No, I think you've done okay. It's just that while the "message source" 
info is so confusing and garbaged up to the casual reader, the email 
client knows what to do with it!
I recall one time when someone actually went to the trouble to explain 
each and every line in "View/Message Source" and it was mind boggling!
Good thing we have the choice of not seeing it in all of our messages!

Thanks for the explanation.

keith