I think its generally agreed that FTP is used for file transfers, but unfortunately the option exists to attach files within an email thanks in part to MS/AOL/Compuserve and numerous others long ago. I believe its due in part to ease of use for those that aren't technically inclined to know better, and make things "easier" for them (harder on others). Kind of like cattle, if you leave a hole (or make a hole) in the fence eventually it will be used and the only thing you can do is build a fence outside of the hole to keep the heard from getting to far. -Joe
-----Original Message----- From: Michael Sokolov [mailto:msokolov@ivan.Harhan.ORG] Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 11:22 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: What is "The Internet" TCP/IP or UNIX-to-UNIX ?
Jim Mercer <jim@reptiles.org> wrote:
if the script determined an email was > X bytes (100k?), the message body was rewritten with:
"Contents removed at LSUC, email is not a file transport protocol." and the mail was left to continue on its path.
i kinda feel like adding the same script back into my servers.
I have my Sendmail configured to cut off anything past 256 KB in the collect phase. At first I had it configured to reject the whole message (close the SMTP connection while the junk is still spewing), but people started assuming that my E-mail address was bad instead of realizing that they were sending oversize junk, so I've changed it to cut off and discard the excess fat, but still let the first 256 KB through so I at least see that someone tried to send me something.
Files are meant to be FTPed, not E-mailed. If someone is too stupid to use a real command line FTP client to upload a file to my FTP drop box, I make them use www.yousendit.com.
MS