Re: mail rules (WAS Re: The latest round of antivirus bouncebacks)
On 11 Apr 2002, Patrick Kirk wrote:
> Does that exculde the hotmail yahoo whatever browser-based mailer
> people?
No. They don't send in HTML. Though I would discourage anybody from
using Hotmail as it's owned by the enemy, and Yahoo due to spamming
practices.
> ms-tnef is not a mail format. I think its an autoresponse...I don't
> know if people choose to send it.
Actually, it is a mail format. A quick google search turned up this
information:
http://agamemnon.ucs.ed.ac.uk/faq/mstnef.html
A common problem is that people will sometimes recieve a message from a
person using some form of Microsoft mailer which is supposed to have a
file attached. Indeed, it does have an attachment but it shows up as
being of type "application/ms-tnef" and does not extract into the file
it is supposed to be. The file that does appear cannot usually be
loaded into the application that the file was supposed to be for. Also,
you may recieve messages that don't mention having an attachment at all,
but yet there is an "application/ms-tnef" file there, usually containing
something called WINMAIL.DAT
The problem is, I'm afraid, a Microsoft one. A few years back they
decided to offer "rich" text features, i.e. extended message formatting.
In order to do this they decided to do the following; send a plain text
version of the message and a version coded into a form of Rich Text
Format. If the mailer on the other end could handle the Rich Text
Format version they would see that, otherwise they would see the plain
text. To do this, they used their own method, called the Microsoft
Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format, or MS-TNEF. Essentially a file
called WINMAIL.DAT, which is just a standard MIME encoding of a Rich
Text Format version of the message, is included with outgoing mail.
This doubles the size of the mail, and is not much use unless you are
using Microsoft mail packages.
This would be just an irritation, however, but for a second problem.
When people using Microsoft mailers with this way of working attach a
file to the message it gets bundled in with the MS-TNEF section, not
attached as a seperate file. Unless you can extract it from the MS-TNEF
attachment you cannot get at the real file.
It goes on to describe what can be done to deal with it in software
other than just flat out filtering out the crap.
> The simple solution is do nothing. The list is fine. The rules you
> suggest are the basis of all email, not something specific to Debian.
Unfortunately common sense isn't common.
--
Baloo
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: