Hi Peter

We operate a fully moderated professional association list for our members, and we exclude any attachments except for PDFs.

As it is fully moderated, we can catch messages that have had an attachment stripped by the server and send it back to the member for reposting.

There is always a bit of member education to remind them that attachments other than PDF's are not allowed, and it plays havoc with some signature blocks that contain images, but it works.

It's not foolproof, but it does allow members to share documents reasonably safely.

Cheers

Michael

Aicalist.org au

Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------

From: "Peter M. Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>

Date: 30/10/22 2:34 am (GMT+10:00)

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: list attachments filtering

For decades (since early 1990's) I've operated LISTSERV (R) lists, filtering out all attachments (perhaps not inline text).

Recently, this has come under review by a subscriber who feels that this is too restrictive.

Personally, as list-owner, I feel that not allowing attachments has served us well: minimum spam (spoofed senders), no viruses, no redundant attachments in recipients' mail boxes (which has to be dealt with on a per-subscriber basis), no question about currency of attachments e.g., documents, no lengthy email controlled by SIZELIM=) especially with REPLY. Minimum size NOTEBOOKs.

So if you do allow attachments, how do you control for viruses, perhaps authorized senders (via perhaps sub-list/super-list where the super-list has attachments, and authorized senders). Are you satisfied with this, especially with heterogenous mail client (MUA) / host environments?

The particular list in question does have its own fileserver w/ its own authorization and controls.

Thank you for any advice especially gotchas.

{not quite ready for any trick or treats ;-) ]

LISTSERV RELEASE:

Master nodes file version:   2020-03-25 06:56:40 (VERS9922)
NJE peers file version:      2020-02-18 01:34:35
Internet peers file version: 2021-06-16 14:57:18
Service file version:        2009-10-07 23:45:39 (VERS9922)
Alias file version:          2020-03-25 06:56:39
Virus database version:      2022-07-26_07 (F-Secure Anti-Virus 11.10)
Running under:               Linux 3.10.0-1160.66.1.el7.x86_64
Build date:                  8 Jun 2019

Pete Weiss

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