On Tue, May 01, 2012 at 07:47:08PM +0100, Roger Lynn wrote: > I have enabled accept_8bitmime in every exim I've installed for the last > 10 years and no one has reported any problems. I think the risk of > encountering a truly 7 bit MTA in this decade is low enough to be > ignored for most purposes. Anyone still using one is likely to find that > a substantial fraction of their incoming mail is corrupted.
I actually use Sendmail's strict 8BITMIME support to help catch spam. I agree that 7-bit MTAs are essentially gone, but with the volume of spam I receive, I set my mail software to be extremely strict with regard to protocols. Legitimate software (of any sort) generally generates protocol-compliant messages. Malicious and illicit software (and that created by Microsoft) generally does not. Legitimate software also generally has a userbase that will complain about rejected data if the software is not protocol-compliant, which often leads to fixes. I've complained to the listmasters that they send 8-bit data that is not MIME (virtually all of which is spam) under the auspices of the 8BITMIME extension; they refuse to fix this, and as a consequence they have to deal with the occasional piece of undeliverable mail. This is not a knock against the listmasters, just an observation that if you violate the protocols, some places will reject your data. -- brian m. carlson / brian with sandals: Houston, Texas, US +1 832 623 2791 | http://www.crustytoothpaste.net/~bmc | My opinion only OpenPGP: RSA v4 4096b: 88AC E9B2 9196 305B A994 7552 F1BA 225C 0223 B187
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