Subject: Attachment Stripped in Transaction

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 17:17:12 -0500

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From: Admin <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Paptuc
date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 17:07:16 -0300

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 20:14:34 -0600 (MDT)

> From: [email-masked]

> > i wonder if we shouldn't take vjs's (i think) suggestion and forbid all MIME 
> > mail on the IETF list (return it to sender with an explanation).
>
> If we do that, it's time to move the RFCs describing multipart/signed
> to 'Historic' status.  Is that the message we want to send?
>
> On the other hand, I could live with the filtering of active content and
> executables (which is what the *real* problem is, right?)

The same reasoning that goes from filtering all MIME to deprecating
the MIME standard applies to any particular MIME type, and vice versa.
If it's ok on standards grounds to filter some MIME, then it is ok to
filter all any or all of it.

Is there a reasonable filter than can filter what Microsoft considers
active content?  Don't some Microsoft MUA's ignore the MIME type and
look for what are called magic numbers in the UNIX world?  If so, the
only reasonable way to filter Microsoft's active content is to filter
based on "X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service."

That would have several benefits:

  - communicating disfavor to a judicially determined monopolist that
   espouses and apparently follows what it itself calls an "embrace
   and extend" response to standards.

  - protecting those who use Microsoft MUA's from Microsoft viruses
   spread via the IETF.

  - stopping the virus warnings which are silly, obnoxious noise to
   anyone with the least common sense--those who choose to not be
   vulnerable to Microsoft's viruses.

  - stopping almost all of those wonderful "Out of Office AutoReplies"

There is absolutely no chance that the IETF of the 21st Century might
take such a straightforward and effective step.  Today it can only be
sarcasm to suggest filtering some MIME types, all MIME types,
HTML+cleartext, or "X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service."

I think the response of the community 20 or 30 years ago to similar
hassles would have been different, but that was a different community
in a different universe as well as a different century.   Oh, well.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]