[Esd-l] Sanitizer for end users

[Kenneth Porter]

On Thu, 2002-05-02 at 06:18, John D. Hardin wrote:

> Actually, the reason I suggested this is I keep getting notes from
> home users who got a bounce, visited the site, and wonder how they can
> implement a sanitizer to protect themselves. I can't really say
> anything other than "talk to your ISP". I'd love to be able to say
> "Here, install this into your Outlook. It covers all the holes MS left
> in."

They can do what I did: Install Linux on a spare old "doorstop" computer
and use it as both a firewall and a mail gateway. You can run fetchmail
to gather mail from your external mailboxes, which pushes it through
sendmail to a local mailbox. Users inside the firewall connect to the
firewall to retrieve their mail.

I've seen several "Linux on a floppy" distributions kicking around. (For
example, a friend is using Freesco as a print server at the office, to
avoid buying a JetDirect.) Perhaps someone could adapt one to this kind
of application to make it easy for the average Outlook user to deploy.

Another approach is to implement the sanitizer in a POP3 or IMAP proxy
that runs locally. This is the approach that the Norton AV uses. The
local MUA connects to the proxy, and the proxy in turn connects to the
real mailbox.