Criminals

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



> User can do click on
> attachments with many mailers, not just Outlook and OE.

Note that any mailer that does this violates the MIME specifications,
which specifically warn against the presentation of content-types not
known to be safe, against a mail reader implementing the ability to present
arbitrary content via a content-type parameter (e.g. "filename"),
and recommends that the most that should be done with unknown content-types
is to offer to save the content to a file.

The working group that produced MIME went to a lot of effort to research the
hazards associated with transmission of arbitrary content by email, and to
craft a series of recommendations that would minimize the harm done.  One
vendor in particular deliberately ignored those recommendations.  It also 
produced mail readers that didn't properly label content on outgoing mail and
ignored the content-type parameter on incoming mail, instead looking at the
suffix of a nonstandard "filename" parameter (which was only intended for use
with application/octet-stream).  When I was on IESG, a program manager with
that company (in charge of an email product) assured me that this decision was
deliberate, as it was thought that it would maximize their company's
penetration in the market.  Obviously, it did serve that end, and other
vendors of mail readers for that platform were forced to emulate (to some
degree) the nonstandard and dangerous behavior of the market leader's
products.

This decision has cost the network billions of dollars, including significant
costs to people who do not use that company's software products (and who
therefore aren't bound by its EULAs).

Words that come to mind to describe this include: Willful, Criminal, and
Negligence.  Another word that comes to mind:  Prison.  As in "some people need
to spend a lot of time there".



[Index of Archives]     [IETF Annoucements]     [IETF]     [IP Storage]     [Yosemite News]     [Linux SCTP]     [Linux Newbies]     [Fedora Users]