FW: Reviving an old idea about renaming forbidden extensions

[Ben C. O. Grimm]

On 9 Jan 2003 23:02:04 +0100, "Spicer, Kevin" <Kevin.Spicer at BMRB.CO.UK>
wrote:

> It might be less irritating to users (and easier to understand) to zip
> the file rather than obfuscate the filename

Suggesting to people to zip those files proved counterproductive. Most
people were already sending self-extracting archives and some of these
archives are automatically produced and distributed (software updates,
patches, stuff like that). The 'zip solution' simply does not apply in all
cases. Suggesting it didn't get me anywhere.

> The option to add text to the message explaining what has
> been done and how dangerous it is to execute unsolicited files may also
> prove attractive.

That's the solution I'm aiming for. Renaming a file by simply stripping off
an added character is probably more acceptable (and not too hard).

While on the subject (, Julian): I mailed a file with the name file.exe~
(yes, with a trailing tilde). It still got rejected by the exe rule .. even
though the file shouldn't match exe$ in the ruleset ..

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