Re: urldefense.us URLs? (was: New Git mirror for the SNL-Sequencer (code and docs))

["Johnson, Andrew N. via Tech-talk" <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>]

Hi Lewis,

 

The uldefense URL wrappers are now being added to all messages sent to the tech-talk at aps.anl.gov list from outside of Argonne. I have no control over them, that's due to a recent DOE mandate and not something that the Argonne security people are at liberty to remove AFAIK. Messages from inside Argonne may not have the wrapper added though, thus I am able to post the canonical URLs from my @anl.gov account without them being "decorated". I don't like that discrimination either, but can't easily do anything about it:

• https://github.com/epics-modules/sequencer/
• https://epics-modules.github.io/sequencer/

 

The only way to avoid this would be to move the tech-talk list outside of the anl.gov domain, i.e. change the list address and set up replacement infrastructure to manage the list and its archive. The urldefense.us/v3 wrapper is at least nicer than the older v2 ones which other DOE labs have been using for quite a few years, it looks relatively easy to remove with a regexp, or to run it through curl -I to get the original:

 

ctldev$ curl -I 'https://urldefense.us/v3/__https:/github.com/epics-modules/sequencer/__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!eE6BmmT8Ri8GapTAzmyfD12LAk9sccR-YQUzobfcJw7GqTEU-BbYLrkuFdpGX4CMuiS_La2TXb2VNWd3dhh53Q$'

HTTP/1.0 200 Connection established

 

HTTP/1.1 302 Found

Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2024 17:34:32 GMT

Content-Length: 0

Connection: keep-alive

Location: https://github.com/epics-modules/sequencer/

Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000

X-Cache-Status: MISS

X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

 

I only just noticed that Ralph's email did not have the somewhat more obnoxious

This Message Is From an External Sender 

This message came from outside your organization.

header which was added to all messages at the same time, thus my request to remove that has been accepted and implemented.

 

- Andrew

 

-- 

Complexity comes for free, Simplicity you have to work for.

 

 

On 3/4/24, 10:47 AM, "Tech-talk" <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> wrote:

 

On 03/04, Ralph Lange via Tech-talk wrote:
> The "official" Git mirror of the SNL Compiler and Sequencer has found a
> more permanent home under the EPICS-Modules umbrella at
>
>     https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://github.com/epics-modules/sequencer/__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!eTS7QVczjxYX8MIiDzYjiJmCxvEeeKu-ZkRiA_dicIRCesT4HJqIPI8KYbHtBm5M0iO27nWOX21u49vSbtd6m0S_tIY$
>
> with the documentation being available at the canonical place on Pages:
>
>     https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://epics-modules.github.io/sequencer/__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!eTS7QVczjxYX8MIiDzYjiJmCxvEeeKu-ZkRiA_dicIRCesT4HJqIPI8KYbHtBm5M0iO27nWOX21u49vSbtd6JaR88-s$

Hi, Ralph!

Are you aware that the URLs you sent are wrapped in a urldefense.us
URL?  When I open a URL, I'd like to go directly to the real URL, not an
intermediary.  In the text/plain part of your email, you can see above
that what would have been a reasonably short and easy-to-read URL has
been changed into a monstrosity.  And for the text/html part, I wouldn't
normally just blindly follow the link (unless on mobile), but it makes
it more of a pain because then I'd have to either copy the text of the
link, or find the actual URL embedded in the urldefense.us URL mess.

Actually, I'd be kind of surprised if you sent URLs wrapped in a
urldefense.us URL since I don't think you're based in the US, right?
So, maybe you didn't do this, but the Tech-Talk mailing list server, or
some server along the way, is doing this automatically?  If so, that's
really annoying, and I certainly would find it frustrating that anything
would be modifying an email that I sent because that would be making
a change without my consent.  (Yes, I'm aware of S/MIME and PGP, but
they're not very widely used.)  If this is the case, maybe Andrew or
someone else at the APS can do something to fix this?

As a test, here's the real URL of the first URL you sent, I'm not
connecting to an ANL SMTP server for submission, and I'm not wrapping it
in a urldefense.us URL, so if it ends up wrapped in one, it wasn't me
who did it:

  https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://github.com/epics-modules/sequencer/__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!eE6BmmT8Ri8GapTAzmyfD12LAk9sccR-YQUzobfcJw7GqTEU-BbYLrkuFdpGX4CMuiS_La2TXb2VNWd3dhh53Q$

Thanks!

Lewis