My mail server overhaul -- exim

David Backeberg dave at math.mit.edu
Wed May 18 12:22:37 EDT 2005


> - Reject binary MIME attachments, especially zip/pif/exe.

I can understand doing this for a personal server, but an amazing number 
of people use zips for legitimate file transfer. I saw some numbers from a 
mail server experiment at UPenn where they were debating whether to block 
anything that came with a .zip extension. I think they determined 85% was 
junk, and their criteria was look at the filenames, make a big list, and 
sort by most often used filenames, comparing those against known viruses.

To me, it's unacceptable to drop legitimate file transfers if you're 
running a mail server that people other than yourself depend on. Just my 
two cents. I personally don't receive zip attachments, so I wouldn't mind 
doing this for a personal server.

And I fully endorse your SMTP tricks to stop spam before it even reaches 
spamassassin.



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