rdadams[at]smart.net (Dick Adams) wrote:

- quote -

My sources [AKA "Gurus"] indicate the first one is probably
someone using the equal sign as a border to separate
material (instead of an underline, for example).

They also suggested the second [=A0] may result from people
using the "alt" key, along with the space bar in order to
achieve an indentation, as for paragraph breaks.

ASCII code is above my pay grade (except for the knowledge
that it exists). BITD (or Back in the Day) of such
antediluvian things as FORTRAN, etc. ...

My first exposure to programming was a brief, hands-on
seminar regarding BASIC -- an appropriate name for a much
simplified computer software coding. I was able to
construct an elementary program for listing my assets. The
accomplishment was about as impressive as the total of my
assets then.

Fortunately, several decades have passed ... and my assets
have grown in inverse proportion to my understanding of
computer languages.

Anyway, hope the info above is accurate and somehow useful.

Bill

Moderator:
Instead of BITD, I use BITDOIMAWS: Back in the days of
Iron Men and Wooden Ships.

Thank you for your insights. The footer on all posts has
been changed to replace the equal signs with hyphens.

<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The above is intended for educational purposes only. > << It does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << It cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of > << the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed > << upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >

Dick Adams wrote:

- quote -

This is just somebody putting a line of non-breaking spaces sandwiched
by lines of equal signs. I have no idea why someone would do that, nor
when the encoded form you're seeing would be used.

Moderator:
Interesting. It coincides with Seth's observation about MIME.
Will someone start a Jihad against MIME? I'm too busy with the
Jihad against Spammers.

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

Dick Adams <rdadams[at]smart.net> wrote:

- quote -

It's MIME quoted/printable (aka quoted/unreadable).

I'd recommend rejecting the messages and telling the poster
to resend them as text/plain.

Seth

Moderator:
You are a certainly a member of the Society for the
Promulgation of Cruelty to the Clueless! The problem
is my filter is already rejecting MIME submissions.
But I will start sending notices on it.

On my PITA scale, MIME comes right after in-laws.

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

I use to see this junk on a post or two a week. Today it was
on six. For what it's worth:

=3D is hexadecimal for 61 (ASCII code for the equal sign).
=A0 is hexadecimal for 160 (ASCII code for "a" under a ').
Let's see is it prints here: *.

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3 D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D > =A0> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 > =A0 > =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3 D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D >
If you know what's causing it, please stop it from happening.
If you can't stop it from happening, delete it if you can.

<< ================================================== ===== > << The above is intended for educational purposes only. > << It does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << It cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of > << the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed > << upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >