[WEB4LIB] Re: Attachments are now stripped

[Knuth, Pat KNUTHP]

I'm one of those Bob refers to.  I didn't have a clue that there was another
part, and I'm not sure I'll be able to switch to it now that I do know.  I
thought the system was deleting the original message and just passing on the
message I was seeing.

Pat Knuth
Electronic Resources Librarian
Combined Arms Research Library
US Army Command & General Staff College
Ft. Leavenworth, KS 66027
(913) 758-3019
knuthp at leavenworth.army.mil


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Rasmussen [mailto:ras at anzio.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 3:27 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: Attachments are now stripped


On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Roy Tennant wrote:

> In the wake of the Melissa virus recirculating, SunSITE system 
> administrators implemented a script that automatically strips 
> attachments from Web4Lib postings. 

I'd noticed. But I think the cure was worse than the disease, or at least it
could have been done more elegantly. Let me explain.

Of course attachments that are .EXE, .VBS, etc., are dangerous. But most
offending messages have a plain text part and an HTML part. This is a
common configuration, and I don't believe it is dangerous. I use Pine 4.21,
and it handles this quite well.

With the current handling, I see only the warning message. I have to switch
to
the other "part" in order to read the original message. I suspect many folks
would not know it was there, and would therefore miss the message.

My preferences, in declining order, would be:

1. Allow HTML.

2. Place the warning message AT THE END of "part 1", the original tet
message.

3. Make the original message "part 1" and the warning "part 2"

-- 
Regards,
...Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.

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