[Esd-l] Weird behavior on some attachments

[Eric Andreychek]

> Using Outlook 2002, it sees the attachment as a UUE attachment and it defangs
> the extension.

(after some testing) Hmm.. you're absolutally right, it does.  I vaguely
remember John saying something about that some time ago, but I didn't click
that it really needed to be added until right now :-)

The problem is quite simple actually.  The code which attempts to strip
attachments is only looking at MIME attachments.  So uuencoded attachments
cannot be stripped.  However, they can be poisoned.

I will try to throw a patch together for John which adds that functionality
before this weekend.  If I don't make it before the weekend, it's going to be a
long time, as I'm going on vacation next week :-)  Also, just because I create
a patch doesn't mean it will go in, there's a lot of considerations to be taken
in when adding new code to this.. for example -- apparently, the poor AIX guys
have a limit on how big a script can be.. heh :-)

As far as the other problems you mentioned goes.. I can't really help you with
that.  Our Outlook users are also getting the body of certain email messages as
a text attachment.  While it might be kinda neat if it didn't do that -- the
advantages of having John's "defanger", as we call it, by far outway the
disadvangage of making users double-click occasional text attachments.  Sorry I
can't help you more :-)  At one point I had been keeping track.. but I've since
lost count of the thousands of viruses John's defanger has blocked for us.  The
peace of being able to slowly stroll into the office on any given morning can't
be measured.. not needing to race to the anti-virus sites to try and download
the latest definitions before their site gets bogged down by everyone else
trying to get protect their systems.  Having John's system is a luxury, and he
should probably be paid more then he is :-) (just remember this John when I
send you a patch in a few hours ;-)

To reiterate Mark's question -- by any chance, does anyone else know of a tweak
or two to keep Outlook from making the body of a message into a text
attachment?
  -Eric

-- 
Eric Andreychek
Residential Warranty Corporation
(717) 561-4480 x2245