On Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Eli Sand wrote:
> > Investigation has found that the cause of these e-mails seems to be
> > Microsoft Outlook 2007 when a Reply To All is used
> >
> (http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/list/en-us/default.aspx?dg=
> microsoft.public.outlook&tid=2f9d47e3-815e-483b-bb4f-871948dfb941&cat=&lang=
> &cr=&sloc=&p=1).
>
> I am using Outlook 2007 and just hit reply to all. Everything is fine
> here it seems...
>
> As the posts on that thread mention, it's probably the sender, or maybe
> an Exchange server as Ian mentions. I've never heard of this problem
> before and have been using Outlook 2007 for about 2 years.
I certainly see the problem, when remote senders grumble that I've refused
to accept a mail on this basis. I usually say something like "there are
errors in your address book/contacts that need to be fixed", demonstrate
what the error is. I rarely hear anything back, either the sender doesn't
understand or fixes it and all is well ...
I find my own users, who have had incoming mail to them refused for these
various 'pedantic' reasons, are reasonably understanding when I explain to
them the nature of the error and why we choose to be pedantic in that way.
They can usually appreciate that there are standards to be maintained and
it is to protect them from nefarious activity and undesirable content that
we are so strict.
People are very often wary of imposing some restrictions and measures on
incoming mail (including restrictions others may call 'pedantic', although
I call it being 'strictly correct' usually). The worry is that
"legitimate mail" will be "lost". Of course if you are refusing it
properly so that the sender gets notified, and if you are providing a
remotely useful error message and a means of contacting you, and you have
the resource to handle the occasional queries, then it can only be for the
best that more people are so pedantic.
(Although, the same argument is useable here as against greylisting and
other techniques: once a critical mass of receiving servers implement
these techniques, it will be worth the while of spammers to accomodate
them, play by the rules, design better SMTP engines, in order to get their
mail past the techniques. But I think we're a long way to go yet, and
there's probably a huge legacy of crap spammy SMTP clients out there that
are easily defeatable.).
Jethro.
--
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jethro R Binks
Computing Officer, IT Services, University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
