[conspire] Halt efforts that compel Apple and other device makers to create a "backdoor" for the Government to access citizens data | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu)
    
> Hmmmm,
> 
> I've trice thrice now, to sign that petition.
> 
> Each time it requires use of an email verification link to finish the process,
> and each time that link received in the email gives a 404 error.
> I've successfully signed petitions on that site before without problems.

I figured that one out.  petitions.whitehouse.gov sends its confirmation
e-mails in multipart-alternative format, plaintext vs. HTML.  The
plaintext version's URLs, perversely, have certain characters, notably
the ampersand, expanded to HTML character entities (in ampersand's case,
to '&').  Thus, if you copy and paste the URL from the plaintext
mail to your Web browser, it's an invalid URL.

OTOH, if you copy and paste the _rendered_ version of the URL from the
mail's HTML portion, it's fine.

An example of HTMLisation run amok.