Hi

Over the past few months, a number of organisations that use our service
have complained about not being able to access our Listserv service via the
web because their organisation blocks all EXE files, which means they can't
use wa.exe. To date, I have adopted the line that this really isn't our
problem since it is entirely valid to have a compiled CGI application and in
any case it runs server-side so is not a threat. Consequently, I advise them
to get their organisation's admin to set up an exception, on whatever
software they use that does the blocking, to allow wa.exe.

The latest such complainer suggests "It is very bad practice to use exe
files in a website". Apart from the fact I am going to reply to him asking
him to tell me on what internet standard, or other respectable document,
does it say this - because I suspect he is making it up to suit his argument
- I was wondering if any other site admin has had this problem and whether
there is a way of masking wa.exe. I was initially thinking of Apache's
RewriteRule function, ie: I could do a global replace on all Listserv TPL
files and change "wa.exe" to say "wascript", then put a rewriterule in to
change "wascript" back to "wa.exe". That way no-one would ever be actually
clicking on a link that contained wa.exe. Has anyone else done that, might
it lead to problems that I haven't thought of, or is there an easier way
that I'm missing?

Thanks

--
Spencer Warhurst
Listserv Services Manager

JISCmail -> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk
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