email policy
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Email policy

I use email very often and I really like it. Yet email must be used efficiently, which means that I have some rules and demands for our email communication.

It is very important to me that we adhere to standards, and do not impose unnecessary burdens upon each other.

What you may do

  • You may send me e-mail
  • You may send me e-mail in plain text
  • You may send attached files in common formats such as: JPEG, PNG, TXT, RTF, DVI, PS, PDF - files that can be opened on a regular Unix workstation with Open Source tools are preferred.

What you should NOT do

  • Don't ever send me spam email
  • Don't ever send me chain letters
  • Don't ever send me "postcards" links to web sites where you have designed an ugly, flashing, fancy postcard
  • Don't ever send me email formatted in HTML
  • Never ever send me email with executable content! If you send me EXE, SCR, VBS, COM etc. you will probably end up in my ignore filter. I will mock you and think badly of you forever on.
  • Don't send me email with an empty subject. An email without a subject cannot be processed efficiently and will be automatically rejected.
  • Don't send me attached Mickeysoft Office format files DOC, XLS, PPS, PPT! I really don't want to use Microsoft Office. It IS possible for me to open these file formats, but you risk a delayed treatment of the e-mails.
  • Don't send me attached OpenOffice format files. I really don't want to use OpenOffice and like Microsoft Office file formats it might delay the treatment
  • Don't send me large attached files - more than 20MB - I'd rather you send me a link where I can download them

I am very sorry if you don't feel like obeying to these demands, and then I guess we have no need to communicate further!

I also have a PGP/GPG key you can use, local download from kramse.asc or from keyserver Key: 0xD1EFBAA6

Blocked file types

I have been forced to filter certain file type and that means I won't accept the following file types:

/^Content-(Disposition|Type):\s+.+?(?:file)?name="?.+?\.(386|ad[ept]|app|as[dpx]|ba[st]|bin|btm|cab|cb[lt]|cgi|chm|cil|cla(ss)?|cmd|cp[el]|crt|cs[
ch]|cvp|dll|dot|drv|em(ai)?l|ex[_e]|fon|fxp|hlp|ht[ar]|in[fips]|isp|jar|jse?|keyreg|ksh|lib|lnk|md[abetw]|mht(m|ml)?|mp3|ms[ciopt]|nte|nws|obj|ocx
|ops|ov.|pcd|pgm|pif|pot|prg|reg|sc[rt]|sh[bs]?|slb|smm|sw[ft]|sys|url|vb[esx]?|vir|vmx|vxd|wm[dsz]|ws[cfh]|xms|\{[\da-f]{8}(?:-[\da-f]{4}){3}-[\d
a-f]{12}\})\b/  REJECT ".$2" file attachment types not allowed check http://www.kramse.dk/email.html
This is to be read as a regular expression, which means that vb[esx] blocks both vbe, vbs and vbx file types. The expression is a part of my Postfix mail filtering and performed as a "header check. If in doubt you can also send me a ZIP or TAR file with data - they are never blocked.

Your mail server and domain

The mailserver you are sending from must obey some rules. I reject mail from servers and domains that does not adhere to those rules.
You can read more about what rules a mail server must obey to on http://www.rfc-ignorant.org/ and you can also check your domain using the http://www.dnsreport.com/
The reason I make these demans are primarily because spammers and spambots do NOT obey to these rules and therefore it can improve my spamfiltering.

Thank you for understanding.
If you discover that my servers or domains do not obey these rules I apologize and will as a bonus reward you with a botlle of red wine or beer - if you are the first to report it to me :-)