Borking Outlook Express

Johannes writes: "Swedish Gnuheter has a story on Nick Moffitt arranging with his X-headers in way that makes it impossible to read his email with Microsoft WebTV or Outlook Express. Moffitt states: 'The folks using Outlook Express have locked themselves into a limited subset of the information that can flow over the Internet, and are blaming me personally for not limiting my transmissions to that outlook-centric subset.' See also original email (in English). Immoral? Or just right?" Looks like Moffit's "Who, me?" attitude is tongue in cheek, but the creative header changes here are hilarious.

Comments

Use his power for good, not evil (or less good:))

[MattRog]

I read the english e-mail and he explains his position (I don't quite understand the hack though) -- rather than blocking totally Microsoft's client, why not make it display "This message would be readable if you used any other email client than Microsoft's. For a list of good clients, some of which are free, visit *url to Download.com or something*."

Same thing for anti-Microsoft mailing lists which disalow Outlook -- kindly inform anything other than Outlook is ok (due to security concerns, etc.) and provide a list of free or not-too-expensive email clients (or again a link to download.com and the like).

Sounds like a much better (and beneficial) use of time.

Re:Borked?

[SuiteSisterMary]

Cut and paste, then.

Får man lägga till nya headers i sina e-post-meddelanden som gör att de meddelanden som man skickar inte kan läsas av de som använder Outlook Express eller läser brev med WebTV?
Frågan har väckts i samband med att Nick Moffitt har skickat just sådana meddelanden på Tron-listan. Microsoft-användarna är inte nöjda med Moffitts beteende medan Moffitt hänvisar till att mottagarnas e-post-program är problemet och inte hans X-headers.

De headers som är omdebatterade:

X-Fnord: +++ath

X-WebTV-Stationery: Standard; BGColor=black; TextColor=black

X-Message-Flag: Message text blocked: ADULT LANGUAGE/SITUATIONS

X-BeenThere: crackmonkey@crackmonkey.org

Läs Nick Moffitts brev på Crackmonkey-listan.

Debattera sedan gärna vidare på Gnuheter.

Using a de facto incoming filter

[HiredMan]

Yes. It's true that I run a mailing list that does not allow posting from Windows users. Many people complain about this, but in my mind I see it as no different than a restaurant or dance hall having a dress code.

Whatever you think of his politics I love the idea of a snooty doorman looking at the M$ users and making them continue to stand in line outside the club. ;)

It raises the bar for entry to the list, and ensures that users really want to be there. There are two ways, actually, that one can meet the crackmonkey mailing list dress code. One is to simply use Free Software[] Another is to continue to use your Windows-based mailer, but hack the headers of your message so as not to betray your use of the software.[] Both methods demonstrate an effort made to post to the list, as well as a certain degree of technical acumen.

I hate to say it but this probably works wonders. I remember when alt.hackers instituted a policy in which it was listed as a "moderated" newsgroup but there was no moderator. So any submitted stories were simply mailed into the ether.
You had to edit your header so that you 'approved' your own post. Yes, it was trivial but a quick comparison between that group and 'alt.2600' proved that even that low a bar worked wonders for the level of content.

=tkk

Posting Gnumeric attachments...?

[KjetilK]

Hm, I'm on this list that is often used to post results from races, and people keep on posting Excel files to that list, in spite of frequent complaints from more than one UNIX user. And in spite of my frequent warnings of how easy it is to trojan a computer when you open Excel attachments. There are a few people on this list who control a lot of money, I find it hard to understand that they dare do it.

Anyway, the time will come when I'm the one to post results. I'll use Gnumeric, I think. I have been toying with the idea of actually posting a Gnumeric XML file to the list... Revenge!!! ;-)

Well, I'm not going to do it just for the revenge. It has to be illustrating some point.

This got me thinking: Since Gnumeric's native file format is based on XML, it should be possible to have it sensibly parsed and displayed in a browser that does support XML, including IE, given....?

OK, so this is the question: What would it take for people to get a readable table on their browser, straight from a Gnumeric XML file?

If this would work, it would illustrate a major point: How much more flexible these products are. Those who have experienced all M$ lock-ins and unreadable documents can suddenly access a document in a format they've never heard of.

OE is pretty great

[rbeattie]

I have to come to defense of Outlook Express. (God help me...).

If you're not familiar with the two Outlook products, here's an overview: Normal "Outlook" is the crappy Microsoft Office-integrated, do-it-all, unsecure, scheduling, Exchange-client, mail reader and more and Outlook Express is simply the POP/IMAP that comes with IE. The latter is a great mail client.

I don't use Internet Explorer anymore - I've been using Mozilla since 9.5 (a few months now) and I love it. But I can't use the Mozilla mail client yet, it's just not mature enough. OE is simple to use, fast, manages the 10,000 emails I have in folders without problems, doesn't make me manage each email account separately (though I could if I wanted), decent filtering, higher-security, etc. Whoever wrote this app at Microsoft had a clue as it's really well done. There's not much wrong with it, except, I guess, whatever this guy is ranting about and the fact that it's a Microsoft product.

The last bit does bother me as I'm slowly weaning myself from M$ products. I have TRIED many other email programs (for Windows) and not been satisfied at all. The Bat!, Eudora, Mozilla, Opera's Email bit and others that have come and gone from my system. Until they're more like OE, I'm not switching...

I'm really pulling for the Mozilla team and gave my feedback to some of the Mail guys during the Bug Week or whatever it's called. But I'm not a C++ programmer (and even if I was, I'm not installing Microsoft Visual C++ to develop with Mozilla...) so I just have to wait until it gets mature enough for daily use.

One good thing though is that the Mozilla importer is great for pulling in my emails from OE already. So when the UI is up to snuff, it'll be a snap to switch over. (And then I can seriously consider switching over to Linux full-time also...)

That's it.

-Russ

Been /.'d already

[4of12]

I have to say, I'd like to find a really good approach for dealing with mailers with built-in prejudicial statements in them.

You know the kind, where you get to see disparaging comments like

This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.

as if you are using a deficient MUA when you see such text.

I'd really like a 2-3 sentence autoreply text that could bounce some of those MS Word attachments with similar pronouncements about

Unfortunately, the .doc attachment you sent me is coded in a special MS proprietary format. Please resend it in an open standard format that is fully described by IETF, ISO, W3C or other international standards body. Also, please request your software vendor to submit their widely-used format for standards approval.

Most people simply have no idea what standards are, nor the ways or the degree to which they pay for the IT infrastructure that they currently use.

Their responses are usually quizzical and predictable, "Uhh, so what does it look like to you when Word launches?" Answer: Word doesn't launch. It requires money to launch. It requires that you buy the whole banana to get Word. (There used to be Ted Rall cartoon years ago that parodied the whole issue during the browser war years "Works best with MS House!"

People so much consider these things like .doc to be standards, that they ought to be made into bona fide standards that are publicly documented, including all the quirks of proper display, instead of just glossing over that they cannot be displayed without paying money to see them, even if its bundled into the cost of your new PC or the Microsoft Enterprise License Agreement for Office, which is probably priced more inelastically than gasoline.

No Inconsistency in Preferring Open Standards

[kmactane]

>Its ok to say "Use anything except outlook" when
>you are on the linux side.
>
>What would you say, if I said use a program that
>can read Word docs [slashdot.org]??

The point about these anti-Outlook headers is that they're still perfectly conformant with RFCs 821, 822, et al. Any conformant mail-reader can read these messages just fine.

But there is no RFC for Word .doc format. In either case, the underlying message is "use a mail client that conforms to open standards (the RFCs)."

When Microsoft releases an RFC for .doc format, then this position will be hypocritical. But until then, it's perfectly consistent. (Alternatively, they could make Outlook obey the RFCs... then Mr. Moffitt's header hacks won't bother it any more.)

rejecting outlook post from mail filters

[SysadminFromHell]

I know of Ubizen, a Belgian security firm, that filters out all of the Outlook posts from its incoming mail for al of its users. They simply send the message back, including an explanation to the sender that it isn't quite safe to use Outlook and that they're only allowing mail from other mail-clients. Considering this comes from a renown security firm, a lot of people take this advise very seriously. Of course, this isn't quite the same thing but it still is an interesting way to look at the 'Outlook Problem'.

Re:Hmm seems to me...

[frost22]

That's no personal vendetta.

He sends out perfectly legitimate mail. We've had this debate on Usenet a few times.

Outcrap^H^H^H^Hlook tries to decode a message as an uuencoded attachment as soon as a message body line starts with "begin ". Feel free to think of the ramifications of that. (And yes, that's not "Header". That's "body", i.e. text supposed to be read by the recipient.)

This bug has been known for ages. M$ just doesn't fix it. It used to be worse, though. There was a time when out look even tried to interpret or execute said attachement. People had signatures that sent every Windows machine into lock or reboot.

Apparently the only way to get M$ to fix the most obvious crappy bugs is to massively exploit them.

So be it.

f.