Subject: Bounces from I-D announcements

From: "Tom-PT Taylor" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 16:54:26 -0500

The lists I administer frequently get bounces from spam-wary systems 
that don't like the final MIME body attached to I-D announcements. The 
latest such bounce was amusing:

Remote host said: 554 5.7.1 message/external-body?  Pull the other one

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 16:33:35 +0100

Is it a valid MIME part though? If not, we can get it fixed.

     Brian

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From: Charles Clancy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 12:17:32 -0500

Indeed -- every I-D announcement I receive my own email server decides 
is a virus and removes the attached MIME body and replaces it with 
"VirusWarning.txt" that says:

"This is a message from the MailScanner E-Mail Virus Protection Service
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The original e-mail attachment 'not named' was believed to be infected 
by a virus and has been replaced by this warning message."

There is definitely something weird with the encoding on these messages.

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From: Kurt Zeilenga <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 09:46:16 -0800

On Feb 24, 2007, at 9:17 AM, Charles Clancy wrote:
> Indeed -- every I-D announcement I receive my own email server  
> decides is a virus and removes the attached MIME body and replaces  
> it with "VirusWarning.txt" that says:
>
> The original e-mail attachment 'not named' was believed to be  
> infected by a virus and has been replaced by this warning message."
>
>> The lists I administer frequently get bounces from spam-wary  
>> systems that don't like the final MIME body attached to I-D  
>> announcements. The latest such bounce was amusing:

Another issue is that mailing list manager seems to trim Received:  
headers
in some cases.  The lack of a complete set of Received: headers will  
cause
the message to be more likely considered SPAM.

-- Kurt

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From: Bill Fenner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 09:48:47 -0800

>Is it a valid MIME part though? If not, we can get it fixed.

It is, but it is rarely used.  I've never seen it used except in
I-D announcements.

There are two message/external-body parts; only the ftp one is a useful part,
because the service that the access-type="mail-server" part points to
doesn't exist.  The IESG approved getting rid of that part on the August 31,
2006 telechat:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/view_telechat_minute.cgi?command=view_minute&id=351

> 6.3 Get rid of [email-masked] mention in I-D announcements? (Bill Fenner) 
> 
> The management issue was discussed. The IESG agreed to get rid of 
> the [email-masked] mention in I-D announcements. 

It was then in my queue to get it implemented, and I didn't follow
through because the change in the announcement message from having
multipart/alternative + 2 message/extermal-body parts to having
just a single message/external-body part changed how at least one
MUA displayed the messages (it fetched the I-D when reading the email,
which probably isn't the desired behavior).

If we agree to get rid of the other message/external-body part then
that problem would go away too.  However, I did get some pushback
from removing the message/external-body ftp part from individuals
who claimed to use it.

  Bill

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From: Matt Mathis <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 12:57:25 -0500 (EST)

I bet they are all correct (both the headers and the errors).  If I were a
paranoid mail troll, I would absolutely forbid Message/External-body because
it defeats all content checks.

I have always found the external message parts in the ID announce messages to
be an annoyance, espically in this day of instant web access and MUA's that
parse plain txt for URLs.

KISS

Thanks,
--MM--
-------------------------------------------
Matt Mathis      http://www.psc.edu/~mathis
Work:412.268.3319    Home/Cell:412.654.7529
-------------------------------------------
Evil is defined by mortals who think they know
"The Truth" and use force to apply it to others.

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From: "Tom-PT Taylor" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 09:24:36 -0500

... and that's the point I hoped to make with my original note, while 
providing some amusement.