Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

[OT] AbbieNormal (was: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???)

am 21.07.2006 07:01:00 von Alan Connor

On comp.mail.misc, in , "AbbieNormal" wrote:
> Path: text.usenetserver.com!atl-c01.usenetserver.com!news.usenetse rver.com!atl-c05.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!cycn y01.gnilink.net!spamkiller2.gnilink.net!gnilink.net!trndny04 .POSTED!296d6063!not-for-mail
> From: AbbieNormal

http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search
AbbieNormal

No posting history.

A sockpuppet created just for this question.

Looks like a troll wants to be a spammer and/or cyberstalker
and/or email-scammer.

> Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
> Subject: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???
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http://slrn.sourceforge.net/docs/README.offline>

I put this alias of his on the Subject line to facilitate
tracking him down: More headers than google groups normally saves
will be saved there in my post.

Don't ever try to track down trolls. They love it. Leave that to
the pros.

Just don't help them.

Note: I won't be downloading any articles on this thread.

Alan

--
See my headers.

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 21.07.2006 13:35:13 von Chris Game

AbbieNormal wrote:

> I'm building a site selling my services/products and want
> professional-looking headers in the emails that I send to my
> customers.

Who bothers to read those? Cut the crap at the bottom that says
'this email is only for the intended recipient..' or any such
variation, though!

--
Chris Game

"Common sense is that layer of prejudices which we acquire before
we are sixteen." -- Albert Einstein

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 21.07.2006 15:02:10 von Tweedale

On 21 Jul 2006 at 4:09, AbbieNormal wrote:
> I'm building a site selling my services/products and want
> professional-looking headers in the emails that I send to my
> customers.
>
> Should I abandon OE and go with Outlook, Eudora or maybe possibly
> Forte Agent? Do they give you any control over the headers?

Why not just run your own MTA instead of relying on a MUA to do it?

--
email: echo t.adllkhsl@iypzavs.hj.br | tr a-gh-pq-z t-za-ij-s

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 21.07.2006 15:48:03 von Frank Slootweg

Tweedale wrote:
> On 21 Jul 2006 at 4:09, AbbieNormal wrote:
> > I'm building a site selling my services/products and want
> > professional-looking headers in the emails that I send to my
> > customers.
> >
> > Should I abandon OE and go with Outlook, Eudora or maybe possibly
> > Forte Agent? Do they give you any control over the headers?
>
> Why not just run your own MTA instead of relying on a MUA to do it?

Or just a MSA (Mail/Message Submission Agent) with his ISP's/MSP's
mailserver/MTA (Mail/Message Transfer Agent). If he has some UNIX/Linux
experience, he can install Cygwin [1] on (MS-)Windows and run ssmtp [2]
as his MSA. ssmtp is a send-only sendmail look-alike. Also there is a
native (non-Cygwin) sendmail for (MS-)Windows. For the latter, check
this group on my name and sendmail or ssmtp.

[1] Cygwin:

[2] ssmtp package for Cygwin:

Re: [OT] UsenetBeavis (was: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???)

am 22.07.2006 01:42:47 von Sam

This is a MIME GnuPG-signed message. If you see this text, it means that
your E-mail or Usenet software does not support MIME signed messages.
The Internet standard for MIME PGP messages, RFC 2015, was published in 1996.
To open this message correctly you will need to install E-mail or Usenet
software that supports modern Internet standards.

--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-455-1153525366-0001
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Content-Disposition: inline
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Usenet Beavis writes:

> http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search
> AbbieNormal
>
> No posting history.

Results 1 - 10 of 24,100 for usenet beavis (0.21 seconds)

Thank Gawd Beavis has plenty of historical record of his kookfarts.

> A mental superior of mine created just for this question.

Beavis, not everyone on Usenet has been posting for ten years.

There's a first time for everyone.

> Looks like a mental superior who wants to have a good chuckle at
> my kookfarts.

Beavis, your kookfarts are universally entertaining.

>

Thank you for your kookfart, Beavis.

> I put another kookfart of mine on the Subject line, I'll continue to
> claim to be Usenet biggest kookbag.

You've got that title pegged, with no visible contenders in sight.

> I'm more deranged, and I am
> the biggest Looney-Tune on Usenet.

Right now, perhaps. But, historically, you still have a way to go to catch
up to all the legendary net.loons that preceded you.

> Don't ever try to make sense of the Usenet Beavis. He loves attention.
> I'm so lonely, I post mindless, foaming-at-the-mouth rants just to get
> someone to pay attention to me.

You poor dear.

> Just ignore me.

Nope. You're my favorite chew toy.

> Note: I will definitely, and positively, be downloading every article in
> this thread.

And you will love every byte of each and every one.

> Beavis
>
> --
> See my kookfarts.

*SLAP*

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Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 04:34:15 von MD Websunlimited

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:35:13 +0100, Chris Game
wrote:

>> I'm building a site selling my services/products and want
>> professional-looking headers in the emails that I send to my
>> customers.
>
>Who bothers to read those? Cut the crap at the bottom that says
>'this email is only for the intended recipient..' or any such
>variation, though!

Just because you don't read them, doesn't mean no one does.

Hell, I almost never do, but I don't consider myself overly technical
and there's a huge number of bigger geeks out there than me.

Having nice headers is just one of those little things that could make
a big difference someday if someone decides to look at them. For
instance, I would never spend any serious money for technical services
with someone that uses an AOL email address. Those people probably
don't even give it a second thought. The same with headers. I've never
given them much thought, but they might become a dealbreaker someday
when dealing with people that give a fuck about headers.

Quick made-up example: Let's say I was running a consulting company
offering Linux services/support. My client has to decide between my
company and another one. Then the improbable happens: the
decision-maker or one of his employees is very smart and a big geek.
He looks at the headers and finds that I'm sending my emails from a
Win 98 system, from a dial-up account, and using OE. The other guy's
headers show he's running some flavor of Linux, using Pine or [insert
leading linux email client here], hooked up to a T1/T3 line, etc.
Guess who wins the contract?

Technical literacy levels are rising all the time and I want
protection from the unknown and from people making snap
judgements/decisions based on what may or may not be in vogue.

I suppose I also have very high standards, that's all.

Thanks anyway.

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 04:44:07 von MD Websunlimited

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:02:10 GMT, Tweedale wrote:

>On 21 Jul 2006 at 4:09, AbbieNormal wrote:
>> I'm building a site selling my services/products and want
>> professional-looking headers in the emails that I send to my
>> customers.
>>
>> Should I abandon OE and go with Outlook, Eudora or maybe possibly
>> Forte Agent? Do they give you any control over the headers?
>
>Why not just run your own MTA instead of relying on a MUA to do it?

Because the MUA is the source of the problem, it's the one that places
all that X-header crap in there. Since it's the thing that's broken, I
figure it's the thing that needs fixing.

What I'm asking for is some sort of solution to first to strip all the
X-header stuff from the MUA (or for an MUA that doesn't create the
problem in the first place) and then for the MTA not to put in extra
junk in there. Nice if it's free, but I'm actually willing to pay $10
per month for something as simple as that, maybe even more.

Yes, as I mentioned, I can always run my own MTA, but my needs (which
have nothing to do with sending 10 billion spam emails per hour, and
have everything to do with nice-looking headers and being able to send
a couple dozen emails per day reliably) would require me to get a
dedicated server at a hosting provider, which usually costs $1,000 per
year and up.

If I wanted to I can run my own smtp server even from my dynamic dsl
connection, using a combination of dyndns and some other hacks out
there. I've done it in the past. I can have a static IP for a couple
dollars more and upgrade to a business-grade dsl connection as well.
But it's not good enough because of the huge headache of running a
server on your own premises.

The biggest problem of course is that all those trigger-happy
Admins/Spam nazis out there might not like my IP for some reason
(Verizon DSL ip - ha!) and put me out of business one day:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dsl+ip+smtp+server+blac klist

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 04:48:46 von MD Websunlimited

On 21 Jul 2006 13:48:03 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote:

>> > Should I abandon OE and go with Outlook, Eudora or maybe possibly
>> > Forte Agent? Do they give you any control over the headers?
>>
>> Why not just run your own MTA instead of relying on a MUA to do it?
>
> Or just a MSA (Mail/Message Submission Agent) with his ISP's/MSP's
>mailserver/MTA (Mail/Message Transfer Agent). If he has some UNIX/Linux
>experience, he can install Cygwin [1] on (MS-)Windows and run ssmtp [2]
>as his MSA. ssmtp is a send-only sendmail look-alike. Also there is a
>native (non-Cygwin) sendmail for (MS-)Windows. For the latter, check
>this group on my name and sendmail or ssmtp.
>
>[1] Cygwin:
>
>[2] ssmtp package for Cygwin:
>

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can do everything I want with Sendmail, but I
just might as well go and bang my head ten times real hard on my desk
and get the same end result in a fraction of the time.

Seriously, though, sendmail is a last resort. It's just going to be my
luck that I'm going to spend the next 2 weeks staying up late reading
man pages only to find that what I'm trying to do is impossible,
there's some kind of bug, or that there's one niggling issue that
can't be quite resolved.

Anyway, it didn't occur to me to run an smtp server to send the emails
first to my ISP instead of connecting directly to the destination
domain. Thanks. That's the solution I will be going with if I can't
find an email client that I like and isn't broken (i.e. add extraneous
x-header shit).

Re: [OT] AbbieNormal (was: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???)

am 22.07.2006 05:00:48 von MD Websunlimited

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:01:00 GMT, Alan Connor
wrote:

>http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search
>AbbieNormal
>
>No posting history.

Then you're either a liar or incompetent in the use of search engines.

A search for author:AbbieNormal shows 7 previous posts.

In addition, google groups doesn't archive the binaries groups.

>A sockpuppet created just for this question.
>
>Looks like a troll wants to be a spammer and/or cyberstalker
>and/or email-scammer.
>

Looks like an idiot you don't want anything to do with.

A real psycho as well.

>I put this alias of his on the Subject line to facilitate
>tracking him down: More headers than google groups normally saves
>will be saved there in my post.

I give up, you tracked me down. What was my crime? Posting in
comp.mail.misc instead of comp.mail.headers?

>Don't ever try to track down trolls. They love it. Leave that to
>the pros.
>
>Just don't help them.
>
>Note: I won't be downloading any articles on this thread.
>
>Alan

Although this is the only post of yours that I've ever read, it is
pretty clear to me that you suffer from officious schizophrenia.

And that's on top of being a half-brained monkey.

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 08:19:47 von hurtta

AbbieNormal writes:

> I'm building a site selling my services/products and want
> professional-looking headers in the emails that I send to my
> customers.
>
> I currently use OE and I'd like to strip all this crap from my headers
> from emails that I send:
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------
> X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869
> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2869
> Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1;
> reply-type=original
> Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
> X-Priority: 3
> X-MSMail-priority: Normal
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------
>
> Should I abandon OE and go with Outlook, Eudora or maybe possibly
> Forte Agent? Do they give you any control over the headers?

You probably want preserve
Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

( and MIME-Version: 1.0 )

these for MIME, and needed if you use something other than US-ASCII only.

format=flowed on content-type was also on some RFC, but I do
not remember which one.

about reply-type=original on content-type I do not have any idea.

These headers are actually conflict. If you have
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

then your mail is 7-bit only and US-ASCII should be used as charset
value (US-ASCII is subset of iso-8859-1). That means that content-type
should be

Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

>

> I already have to do a secure login to all smtp servers anyway, so I
> don't see any reason why I shouldn't have control over the headers.
> I've got hosting accounts with Lunapages.com and 1and1.com and they
> all add crap.
>
> Lunarpages example: (same crap when I send using their webmail clients
> - IMP and SquirrelMail)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------
> X-Priority: 3
> X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2869
> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869
> X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it
> with any abuse report
> X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - marknab.lunarpages.com
> X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - mydomain.com
> X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [0 0] / [47 12]
> X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - mydomain.com
> X-Source:
> X-Source-Args:
> X-Source-Dir:
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------
>
>
> Other than getting a dedicated server ($1000+ /yr), what are my
> options? Yahoo! Business Email might be the answer, but from the looks
> of it there doesn't seem anything special about it.
>
> Here's an example of a nice header from Amazon.com. Notice how there
> is no identifying information of the PC this email was sent from, the
> email client used, or a bunch of useless crap (and obviously an
> ass-long dynamic ip and host name).
>
> There's lots of "amazon.com's" in there, an obviously multi-million
> dollar "Amazon Corporate Relay" and the very reliable and
> confidence-boosting "Amazon-track". All amid a sea of amazon.com smtp
> servers.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------
> Return-Path:
> Received: from smtp-out-0102.amazon.com (smtp-out-0102.amazon.com
> [207.171.180.183])
> by above.hostsure.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id
> k2KGx5iT025723
> for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2006 08:59:05 -0800
> X-Amazon-Corporate-Relay: smtp-out-0102.sea3.amazon.com
> X-AMAZON-TRACK:
> Received: from smtp-in-1001.vdc.amazon.com by smtp-out-0102.amazon.com
> with ESMTP
> (peer crosscheck: smtp-in-1001.vdc.amazon.com)
> Received: from cs-batch-1101.vdc.amazon.com
> (cs-batch-1101.vdc.amazon.com [10.137.2.32])
> by smtp-in-1001.vdc.amazon.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id
> k2KGxEu0001892;
> Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:59:14 GMT
> Received: by cs-batch-1101.vdc.amazon.com
> Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:59:14 GMT
> Message-Id:
> Subject: Your Amazon.com Order (#132-7448527-4665454)
> To: me@me.com
> From: cust.service03@amazon.com
> Cc: orders@amazon.com
> Status:
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------

/ Kari Hurtta

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 09:57:34 von MD Websunlimited

On 22 Jul 2006 09:19:47 +0300, hurtta@mellu.keh.iki.fi (Kari E.
Hurtta) wrote:

>> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------
>> X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869
>> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2869
>> Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1;
>> reply-type=original
>> Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
>> X-Priority: 3
>> X-MSMail-priority: Normal
>> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------
>>
>> Should I abandon OE and go with Outlook, Eudora or maybe possibly
>> Forte Agent? Do they give you any control over the headers?
>
>You probably want preserve
> Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
>
>( and MIME-Version: 1.0 )
>
>these for MIME, and needed if you use something other than US-ASCII only.
>
>
> format=flowed on content-type was also on some RFC, but I do
> not remember which one.
>
> about reply-type=original on content-type I do not have any idea.
>
>
>These headers are actually conflict. If you have
> Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
>
>then your mail is 7-bit only and US-ASCII should be used as charset
>value (US-ASCII is subset of iso-8859-1). That means that content-type
>should be
>
> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>

I'm using the default OE settings for sending plain text emails.
Microsoft not being RFC-compliant? What else is new?

Anyway, since you might know this off the top of your head, which
headers are required that would make an email minimally RFC-compliant?

I'm guessing:

Return-Path:
Received: (minimum:1, maximum:?)
Date:
Subject: (but this could be blank, so would it be required then?)
To:
From:

Any others?

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 10:45:20 von hurtta

AbbieNormal writes:

> I'm guessing:
>
> Return-Path:

NO. That (Return-Path) never occurs when mail is transported.
Return-Path is added when mail is leaving SMTP world and is
written to mailbox. It includes envelope sender (it is passed
with MAIL FROM -command on SMTP.)

> Received: (minimum:1, maximum:?)

This header is not added by MUA (Mail User Agent or mail reading
program.)

Every MTA (Mail Transport Agent) is suuposed to add one header
when it passes (transports) mail.

> Date:

Yes. But for example sendmail (one MTA) adds this if MUA is not
added that.

This is required, but if MUA fail to add this, some MTAs fix that error.

> Subject: (but this could be blank, so would it be required then?)

I think that this is not minimally required, but in practise
occurs on every mail, so it is strange if mail do not have subject.

> To:

Yes. (Or actually one of headers To:, Cc: or BCC: is required.
Note that Bcc: is often automatically removed from mail. Mail
may just include empty Bcc: -header.)

> From:

Yes.

> Any others?

I think not. (But of course, if you need use some other standards
(for example MIME) also, then you need more headers. )

/ Kari Hurtta

RFC 822 says: (822 is old, but it have standard status. RFC 2822
is never, but it do not have standard status.)

4.1. SYNTAX

Note: Due to an artifact of the notational conventions, the syn-
tax indicates that, when present, some fields, must be in
a particular order. Header fields are NOT required to
occur in any particular order, except that the message
body must occur AFTER the headers. It is recommended
that, if present, headers be sent in the order "Return-
Path", "Received", "Date", "From", "Subject", "Sender",
"To", "cc", etc.

This specification permits multiple occurrences of most
fields. Except as noted, their interpretation is not
specified here, and their use is discouraged.

The following syntax for the bodies of various fields should
be thought of as describing each field body as a single long
string (or line). The "Lexical Analysis of Message" section on
"Long Header Fields", above, indicates how such long strings can
be represented on more than one line in the actual transmitted
message.

message = fields *( CRLF *text ) ; Everything after
; first null line
; is message body

fields = dates ; Creation time,
source ; author id & one
1*destination ; address required
*optional-field ; others optional

source = [ trace ] ; net traversals
originator ; original mail
[ resent ] ; forwarded

trace = return ; path to sender
1*received ; receipt tags

return = "Return-path" ":" route-addr ; return address

received = "Received" ":" ; one per relay
["from" domain] ; sending host
["by" domain] ; receiving host
["via" atom] ; physical path
*("with" atom) ; link/mail protocol
["id" msg-id] ; receiver msg id
["for" addr-spec] ; initial form
";" date-time ; time received

originator = authentic ; authenticated addr
[ "Reply-To" ":" 1#address] )

authentic = "From" ":" mailbox ; Single author
/ ( "Sender" ":" mailbox ; Actual submittor
"From" ":" 1#mailbox) ; Multiple authors
; or not sender

resent = resent-authentic
[ "Resent-Reply-To" ":" 1#address] )

resent-authentic =
= "Resent-From" ":" mailbox
/ ( "Resent-Sender" ":" mailbox
"Resent-From" ":" 1#mailbox )

dates = orig-date ; Original
[ resent-date ] ; Forwarded

orig-date = "Date" ":" date-time

resent-date = "Resent-Date" ":" date-time

destination = "To" ":" 1#address ; Primary
/ "Resent-To" ":" 1#address
/ "cc" ":" 1#address ; Secondary
/ "Resent-cc" ":" 1#address
/ "bcc" ":" #address ; Blind carbon
/ "Resent-bcc" ":" #address

optional-field =
/ "Message-ID" ":" msg-id
/ "Resent-Message-ID" ":" msg-id
/ "In-Reply-To" ":" *(phrase / msg-id)
/ "References" ":" *(phrase / msg-id)
/ "Keywords" ":" #phrase
/ "Subject" ":" *text
/ "Comments" ":" *text
/ "Encrypted" ":" 1#2word
/ extension-field ; To be defined
/ user-defined-field ; May be pre-empted

msg-id = "<" addr-spec ">" ; Unique message id

extension-field =
published as a formal extension to this
specification; none will have names beginning
with the string "X-">

user-defined-field =
in this specification or published as an
extension to this specification; names for
such fields must be unique and may be
pre-empted by published extensions>

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 12:51:27 von Chris Game

On 22 Jul 2006 11:45:20 +0300, Kari E. Hurtta wrote:

>> Subject: (but this could be blank, so would it be required then?)
>
> I think that this is not minimally required, but in practise
> occurs on every mail, so it is strange if mail do not have subject.

Many spam filters will kill mail without a Subject line.

--
Chris Game

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 12:52:40 von Chris Game

On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 02:34:15 GMT, AbbieNormal wrote:

> I suppose I also have very high standards, that's all.

Well I suggest you avoid the 'f' word in your email, and sign it
properly too!

(Maybe you do for all I know!)

--
Chris Game

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 13:32:45 von MD Websunlimited

On 22 Jul 2006 11:45:20 +0300, hurtta@mellu.keh.iki.fi (Kari E.
Hurtta) wrote:

>AbbieNormal writes:
>
>> I'm guessing:
>>
>> Return-Path:
>
> NO. That (Return-Path) never occurs when mail is transported.
> Return-Path is added when mail is leaving SMTP world and is
> written to mailbox. It includes envelope sender (it is passed
> with MAIL FROM -command on SMTP.)
>
>> Received: (minimum:1, maximum:?)
>
> This header is not added by MUA (Mail User Agent or mail reading
> program.)
>
> Every MTA (Mail Transport Agent) is suuposed to add one header
> when it passes (transports) mail.

Well, yeah, those 2 headers obviously are not added by the MUA. What I
meant is if you receive an email without them (I'm not sure if that's
even possible), then the email is not RFC-compliant.

>> Date:
>
> Yes. But for example sendmail (one MTA) adds this if MUA is not
> added that.
>
> This is required, but if MUA fail to add this, some MTAs fix that error.
>
>> Subject: (but this could be blank, so would it be required then?)
>
> I think that this is not minimally required, but in practise
> occurs on every mail, so it is strange if mail do not have subject.
>
>> To:
>
> Yes. (Or actually one of headers To:, Cc: or BCC: is required.
> Note that Bcc: is often automatically removed from mail. Mail
> may just include empty Bcc: -header.)
>
>> From:
>
> Yes.
>
>> Any others?
>
> I think not. (But of course, if you need use some other standards
> (for example MIME) also, then you need more headers. )

Yep, but it's not like I would ever in my life send an email that is
not text-only.

I'm trying to think real hard here, but what possible use could an
X-header such as X-MAILER be good for? Just to waste bandwidth? An
advertising avenue for email clients? Keeping score in a popularity
contest?

Thanks for your insights. Now the search begins for a way to:

Somehow make OE send only the 4 headers that I ever use: From:,
To:, Subject:, Date:. Would be nice if this could be accomplished by
some sort of utility to hack the OE .exe and/or .dll file(s).
Unfortunately, I don't have the know-how to write my own. 2nd option
is to run a windows-native GUI MTA that can easily strip headers. 3rd
option is running sendmail or ssmtp to strip headers.

OR

Another email client just as user-friendly and feature-equivalent as
OE that sends only the absolutely necessary 4 headers.

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 14:01:22 von MD Websunlimited

On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 11:52:40 +0100, Chris Game
wrote:

>On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 02:34:15 GMT, AbbieNormal wrote:
>
>> I suppose I also have very high standards, that's all.
>
>Well I suggest you avoid the 'f' word in your email,

Thanks for the suggestion. I see that you might be one of those people
that write things like "f word" or "f*ck" or "sh*it".

My suggestion to you: fuck is a perfectly good word, the phrase "give
a fuck" is an excellent option when you get bored of saying "give a
shit/damn/crap", and finally, that was no email, it was a usenet
posting.

>and sign it
>properly too!
>
>(Maybe you do for all I know!)

That's funny because if you go back to May 5 2004 10:21 pm in this
very same newsgroup, I made a post with the following subject:

"RFC-compliant signatures "-- " Which RFC is it?"

Sadly, there's no RFC-compliant way to sign one's emails or usenet
postings, merely a suggestion on how to do it.

Yep, I actually sign all my emails with:

--

....but not my usenet posts.

But since you were so kind to properly sign your post, which enabled
me to reply to this message without having to manually delete your
name, I'll do the same. :)

--
AbbieNormal

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 14:38:57 von hurtta

> Thanks for your insights. Now the search begins for a way to:
>
> Somehow make OE send only the 4 headers that I ever use: From:,
> To:, Subject:, Date:. Would be nice if this could be accomplished by
> some sort of utility to hack the OE .exe and/or .dll file(s).
> Unfortunately, I don't have the know-how to write my own. 2nd option
> is to run a windows-native GUI MTA that can easily strip headers. 3rd
> option is running sendmail or ssmtp to strip headers.
>
> OR
>
> Another email client just as user-friendly and feature-equivalent as
> OE that sends only the absolutely necessary 4 headers.

MIME more or left suggest that all mail are MIME -typed. Even when
they are text with (US) ascii character set. That adds headers:

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-encoding: 7bit

Thase same values are also default, but MIME suggest that they are
explicity specified.

Nowdays almost all MUAs follow MIME.

/ Kari Hurtta

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 14:42:13 von hurtta

AbbieNormal writes:

> Yep, but it's not like I would ever in my life send an email that is
> not text-only.

You need MIME -headers also if you use characters outside of us-ascii
set.

/ Kari Hurtta

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 22.07.2006 15:09:24 von Frank Slootweg

AbbieNormal wrote:
> On 21 Jul 2006 13:48:03 GMT, Frank Slootweg
> wrote:
>
> >> > Should I abandon OE and go with Outlook, Eudora or maybe possibly
> >> > Forte Agent? Do they give you any control over the headers?
> >>
> >> Why not just run your own MTA instead of relying on a MUA to do it?
> >
> > Or just a MSA (Mail/Message Submission Agent) with his ISP's/MSP's
> >mailserver/MTA (Mail/Message Transfer Agent). If he has some UNIX/Linux
> >experience, he can install Cygwin [1] on (MS-)Windows and run ssmtp [2]
> >as his MSA. ssmtp is a send-only sendmail look-alike. Also there is a
> >native (non-Cygwin) sendmail for (MS-)Windows. For the latter, check
> >this group on my name and sendmail or ssmtp.
> >
> >[1] Cygwin:
> >
> >[2] ssmtp package for Cygwin:
> >
>
> Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can do everything I want with Sendmail, but I
> just might as well go and bang my head ten times real hard on my desk
> and get the same end result in a fraction of the time.
>
> Seriously, though, sendmail is a last resort. It's just going to be my
> luck that I'm going to spend the next 2 weeks staying up late reading
> man pages only to find that what I'm trying to do is impossible,
> there's some kind of bug, or that there's one niggling issue that
> can't be quite resolved.

You missed the point. I'm talking about using a M*S*A only, *not* your
own M*T*A.

Both ssmtp and the native sendmail are *send-only*. The configuration,
at least for ssmtp, is *trivial* and part of the installation process.
The usage is just piping the desired headers and body to it. So no need
for headaches or staying up late. That the *real* (i.e. full/UNIX)
sendmail can *also* be a M*T*A, which is indeed not trivial to set up,
is irrelevant to my suggestion (because I'm not suggesting to use it as
a MTA).

> Anyway, it didn't occur to me to run an smtp server to send the emails
> first to my ISP instead of connecting directly to the destination
> domain. Thanks. That's the solution I will be going with if I can't
> find an email client that I like and isn't broken (i.e. add extraneous
> x-header shit).

As I said, there is no need to run your own MTA. Only use a MSA (like
ssmtp or sendmail) *instead of* your MUA/mailer, so you have full
control over the headers. Only if your ISP's/MSP's MTA (i.e. not (only)
your MUA/mailer) adds undesired headers, you will have to run your own
MTA.

Re: [OT] AbbieNormal

am 23.07.2006 00:19:33 von Hans-Peter Sauer

AbbieNormal wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:01:00 GMT, Alan Connor
> wrote:
>
>> http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search
>> AbbieNormal
>>
>> No posting history.
>
> Then you're either a liar or incompetent in the use of search engines.
>
> A search for author:AbbieNormal shows 7 previous posts.
>
> In addition, google groups doesn't archive the binaries groups.
>
>
>> A sockpuppet created just for this question.
>>
>> Looks like a troll wants to be a spammer and/or cyberstalker
>> and/or email-scammer.
>>
>
> Looks like an idiot you don't want anything to do with.
>
> A real psycho as well.
>
>
>> I put this alias of his on the Subject line to facilitate
>> tracking him down: More headers than google groups normally saves
>> will be saved there in my post.
>
> I give up, you tracked me down. What was my crime? Posting in
> comp.mail.misc instead of comp.mail.headers?
>
>
>> Don't ever try to track down trolls. They love it. Leave that to
>> the pros.
>>
>> Just don't help them.
>>
>> Note: I won't be downloading any articles on this thread.
>>
>> Alan
>
>
> Although this is the only post of yours that I've ever read, it is
> pretty clear to me that you suffer from officious schizophrenia.
>
> And that's on top of being a half-brained monkey.
>

You forgot inbred psychopath.

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 23.07.2006 02:26:53 von MD Websunlimited

On 22 Jul 2006 13:09:24 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote:

> As I said, there is no need to run your own MTA. Only use a MSA (like
>ssmtp or sendmail) *instead of* your MUA/mailer, so you have full
>control over the headers. Only if your ISP's/MSP's MTA (i.e. not (only)
>your MUA/mailer) adds undesired headers, you will have to run your own
>MTA.

I didn't really get the difference between an MSA and MTA before, but
I think I got it now.

My problem is that I want to use OE to compose emails and initiate the
sending process. So at a minimum, I need an MSA that is capable of
stripping headers. That rules out ssmtp. And then of course it would
be nice to have the MSA be windows-native and run in the background
with no interaction or upkeep required. Can sendmail do that? I just
looked and there seem to be at least half a dozen versions of sendmail
for windows.

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 23.07.2006 11:53:56 von Frank Slootweg

AbbieNormal wrote:
> On 22 Jul 2006 13:09:24 GMT, Frank Slootweg
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > As I said, there is no need to run your own MTA. Only use a MSA (like
> >ssmtp or sendmail) *instead of* your MUA/mailer, so you have full
> >control over the headers. Only if your ISP's/MSP's MTA (i.e. not (only)
> >your MUA/mailer) adds undesired headers, you will have to run your own
> >MTA.
>
> I didn't really get the difference between an MSA and MTA before, but
> I think I got it now.
>
> My problem is that I want to use OE to compose emails and initiate the
> sending process. So at a minimum, I need an MSA that is capable of
> stripping headers. That rules out ssmtp. And then of course it would
> be nice to have the MSA be windows-native and run in the background
> with no interaction or upkeep required. Can sendmail do that? I just
> looked and there seem to be at least half a dozen versions of sendmail
> for windows.

Nobody *wants* to use OE, but I disgress! :-)

I see your point. You need some kind of back-end 'filter' 'behind' OE,
i.e. in its outgoing SMTP path. ssmtp and the send-only sendmail are
indeed no solution for that.

After my previous response, I got another idea: Hamster [1]. Hamster
is a 'small' 'personal' News and email server for (MS-)Windows, which
sits between your newsreader/mailer and your real ISP's/NSP's/MSP's
News/mail server(s). You can use either (News/email) part. I only the
News part, so I hope that others can comment on whether or not Hamster
can do outbound filtering of email headers. Hamster has a GUI and is
easy to set up, so no headaches or staying up late. :-)

I hope this helps.

[1]

--
Frank "Whatever the problem, Hamster is the solution!" :-) Slootweg

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 23.07.2006 13:33:38 von hurtta

AbbieNormal writes:

> I'm trying to think real hard here, but what possible use could an
> X-header such as X-MAILER be good for? Just to waste bandwidth? An
> advertising avenue for email clients? Keeping score in a popularity
> contest?

X-Mailer is very common.

Is there MUAs which do not add X-Mailer (or alternatively User-Agent)
-header?

/ Kari Hurtta

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 24.07.2006 03:33:50 von MD Websunlimited

On 23 Jul 2006 09:53:56 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote:

>> My problem is that I want to use OE to compose emails and initiate the
>> sending process. So at a minimum, I need an MSA that is capable of
>> stripping headers. That rules out ssmtp. And then of course it would
>> be nice to have the MSA be windows-native and run in the background
>> with no interaction or upkeep required. Can sendmail do that? I just
>> looked and there seem to be at least half a dozen versions of sendmail
>> for windows.
>
> Nobody *wants* to use OE, but I disgress! :-)

Cool, a digression! :) You are fucking awesome.

OE got a bad reputation from the days of Win98/FAT32. Almost always
most OE corruption issues were because of the file system and a simple
scandisk fixed the problem (assuming of course scandisk was able to
fix the problem with the file system).

The fact is that it's lightweight, fast, stable and reliable (did you
know that the OE exe is only 59KB?) I've been using it every single
day for the past 8 years or so and I have never lost an email. I think
I might have gotten 1 or 2 corrupted back in the 90's, but that was on
a Win98/FAT32 system and one the emails was a piece of spam. And
remember: Win98 suffers hard crashes/bsod's at least 2 or 3 times per
month, even if you run the most bare-bones and optimized of
installations.

Yes, I can think of a dozen annoyances off the top of my head and
missing features, but it does what I need very nicely: email-only,
send/receive text-only, dozens of pop accounts, dozens of inbound
filtering rules, dozens of folders (some with 50K+ emails) and dozens
of open/closes per day - all while remaining snappy and crashing only
once or twice per year. And that's on a WinXP system that I reboot
only once every 2-3 months, under varying system states with as many
as a couple dozen apps open at the same time and system memory
footprints as high as 2GB+. Hell, I can even live with 3 crashes per
year because OE crashes nicely with zero problems.

Some more facts: Running WinXP for 4 years. Only 3 hard crashes, last
one more than 2 years ago. OE was open during all of them and nothing
happened (those 3 hard crashes, btw, were because of crappy unsigned
Matrox display drivers).

Anyway, I've heard good things about the following and just might
switch for the additional features/less annoyances (hopefully):

The Bat!
Eudora
Pegasus Mail

Can anyone vouch for them? Any other clients I should be considering?

> I see your point. You need some kind of back-end 'filter' 'behind' OE,
>i.e. in its outgoing SMTP path. ssmtp and the send-only sendmail are
>indeed no solution for that.
>
> After my previous response, I got another idea: Hamster [1]. Hamster
>is a 'small' 'personal' News and email server for (MS-)Windows, which
>sits between your newsreader/mailer and your real ISP's/NSP's/MSP's
>News/mail server(s). You can use either (News/email) part. I only the
>News part, so I hope that others can comment on whether or not Hamster
>can do outbound filtering of email headers. Hamster has a GUI and is
>easy to set up, so no headaches or staying up late. :-)
>
> I hope this helps.
>
>[1]

Thanks, looks promising. Will take a better look in a day or two.

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 24.07.2006 03:37:06 von MD Websunlimited

On 23 Jul 2006 14:33:38 +0300, hurtta@mellu.keh.iki.fi (Kari E.
Hurtta) wrote:

>X-Mailer is very common.
>
>Is there MUAs which do not add X-Mailer (or alternatively User-Agent)
>-header?
>

That's what I want to know! None that I'm aware of, but my first
suspect would be Emacs.

I can't say personally because I'm not a masochist.

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 24.07.2006 03:49:15 von Troy Piggins

* AbbieNormal wrote:
> On 23 Jul 2006 09:53:56 GMT, Frank Slootweg
> wrote:

>>> My problem is that I want to use OE to compose emails and initiate the
>>> sending process. So at a minimum, I need an MSA that is capable of
>>> stripping headers. That rules out ssmtp. And then of course it would
>>> be nice to have the MSA be windows-native and run in the background
>>> with no interaction or upkeep required. Can sendmail do that? I just
>>> looked and there seem to be at least half a dozen versions of sendmail
>>> for windows.
[snip digression :)]

>> I see your point. You need some kind of back-end 'filter' 'behind' OE,
>>i.e. in its outgoing SMTP path. ssmtp and the send-only sendmail are
>>indeed no solution for that.
>>
>> After my previous response, I got another idea: Hamster [1]. Hamster
>>is a 'small' 'personal' News and email server for (MS-)Windows, which
>>sits between your newsreader/mailer and your real ISP's/NSP's/MSP's
>>News/mail server(s). You can use either (News/email) part. I only the
>>News part, so I hope that others can comment on whether or not Hamster
>>can do outbound filtering of email headers. Hamster has a GUI and is
>>easy to set up, so no headaches or staying up late. :-)
>>
>> I hope this helps.
>>
>>[1]

That link seems broken, but I found working one here:

http://www.arcorhome.de/newshamster/tgl/misc/hamster_en.html
http://www.arcorhome.de/newshamster/tgl/

--
Troy Piggins : "Join the Army, meet interesting people, kill them."
,-o
o ) Ubuntu linux 6.06 http://ubuntu.com RLU#415538 http://counter.li.org
`-o uptime: 11:46:41 up 19 days,14:28,2 users,load average:0.02,0.01,0.00

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 24.07.2006 03:52:23 von Sam

This is a MIME GnuPG-signed message. If you see this text, it means that
your E-mail or Usenet software does not support MIME signed messages.
The Internet standard for MIME PGP messages, RFC 2015, was published in 1996.
To open this message correctly you will need to install E-mail or Usenet
software that supports modern Internet standards.

--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-9002-1153705943-0001
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

AbbieNormal writes:

> The fact is that it's lightweight, fast, stable and reliable (did you
> know that the OE exe is only 59KB?)

That is completely meaningless. Look at the size of msie.exe, and tell me
with a straight face that this is entirety of Internet Exploirer.

oe.exe is just a stub shim. The bulk of MSOE is splattered across countless
DLLs in \windows.

--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-9002-1153705943-0001
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQBExCfXx9p3GYHlUOIRAvZ5AJ4syLRjmYQx0I1cmfkxK88XP+mkSgCf R0Hw
GvFj5X1dHTTtFxByxI/bX2E=
=EBKq
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-9002-1153705943-0001--

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 24.07.2006 04:14:56 von MD Websunlimited

On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 20:52:23 -0500, Sam wrote:

>AbbieNormal writes:
>
>> The fact is that it's lightweight, fast, stable and reliable (did you
>> know that the OE exe is only 59KB?)
>
>That is completely meaningless. Look at the size of msie.exe, and tell me
>with a straight face that this is entirety of Internet Exploirer.
>
>oe.exe is just a stub shim. The bulk of MSOE is splattered across countless
>DLLs in \windows.

You're probably right. But I don't know much about the subject, so
I'll take your word for it.

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 24.07.2006 04:37:57 von gtaylor

AbbieNormal wrote:
> That's what I want to know! None that I'm aware of, but my first
> suspect would be Emacs.

I just tested "mail" (nail package) and found that it does not add any User-Agent or X-Mailer headers.

Grant. . . .

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 24.07.2006 04:46:16 von gtaylor

AbbieNormal wrote:
> Anyway, I've heard good things about the following and just might
> switch for the additional features/less annoyances (hopefully):
>
> The Bat!
> Eudora
> Pegasus Mail
>
> Can anyone vouch for them? Any other clients I should be considering?

I have used Eudora a LONG time ago, 8 or so years. I switched to Netscape Communicator to use the integrated Mail/News client and have stuck with it's lineage sense. Presently I'm using Thunderbird on multiple platforms and will not likely switch away any time soon. However the only reason I would put my grandma on TB would be so I did not have to worry about MS IE security problems. TB has a LOT of options and then there are the plug ins. This may be one of the only draw backs that I know of to TB. Presently I use TB on multiple platforms back ending in to an IMAP message store. I LOVE it. If I read a message on one computer it shows up as read on all systems. :) What ever MUA you use you should take a look in to IMAP if you have more than one computer that you would like to use to check the same account. I also believe I have read that it is possible with an extension to TB to control Sieve server side filters.

Grant. . . .

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 24.07.2006 05:23:42 von MD Websunlimited

On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 21:46:16 -0500, "Taylor, Grant"
wrote:

>
>

Presently I use TB on multiple platforms back ending in to an IMAP
message store. I LOVE it. If I read a message on one computer it shows
up as read on all systems. :) What ever MUA you use you should take
a look in to IMAP if you have more than one computer that you would
like to use to check the same account. I also believe I have read that
it is possible with an extension to TB to control Sieve server side
filters.
>
>

I tried IMAP, but I don't see any advantages it has over webmail stuff
like Gmail. Using a web browser is much more convenient because you
can find one everywhere, which means you can access your email from
any computer on the planet.That certainly beats having to deal with a
separate app, which may or may not support imap, and which you may or
may not be familiar with.

The thing with TB is that it has too much stuff, so I might as well go
with Outlook 2003, which I already have installed on my pc but almost
never use. But I'm looking for something lightweight to minimize the
complexity and its attendant annoyances/bugs/unpredictabilities.

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 24.07.2006 05:29:21 von MD Websunlimited

On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 21:37:57 -0500, "Taylor, Grant"
wrote:

>AbbieNormal wrote:
>> That's what I want to know! None that I'm aware of, but my first
>> suspect would be Emacs.
>
>I just tested "mail" (nail package) and found that it does not add any User-Agent or X-Mailer headers.
>
>
>
>Grant. . . .

I just download Blat (blat.net) and used the -noh2 switch to send an
email without an X-mailer or User-Agent header.

Not sure if Blat would be considerend an MUA, MSA, or both.

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 24.07.2006 12:51:24 von Chris Game

On Mon, 24 Jul 2006 03:23:42 GMT, AbbieNormal wrote:

> The thing with TB is that it has too much stuff, so I might as
> well go with Outlook 2003, which I already have installed on my
> pc but almost never use.

Why not? It looks better and is probably more reliable. But what was
wrong with GoogleMail (as we have to call it in the UK)? Or if you
want the same 'save everything in the same bucket, use filters to
organize the views' approach but on a local machine, use OperaMail?

--
Chris Game

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 24.07.2006 12:51:56 von Frank Slootweg

AbbieNormal wrote:
> On 23 Jul 2006 09:53:56 GMT, Frank Slootweg
> wrote:
>
> >> My problem is that I want to use OE to compose emails and initiate the
> >> sending process. So at a minimum, I need an MSA that is capable of
> >> stripping headers. That rules out ssmtp. And then of course it would
> >> be nice to have the MSA be windows-native and run in the background
> >> with no interaction or upkeep required. Can sendmail do that? I just
> >> looked and there seem to be at least half a dozen versions of sendmail
> >> for windows.
> >
> > Nobody *wants* to use OE, but I disgress! :-)
>
> Cool, a digression! :) You are fucking awesome.

>

[OE ain't all that bad]

I *could* tell you which mailer I occasionally, note *occassionally*,
use, but then I'd have to kill you, and Sam, and a large part of the
rest of the audience, and would have to cancel this article and rmgroup
this group, and that would be only for starters. So I won't.

>

[deleted]

Re: Controlling email headers - at the email client or ???

am 24.07.2006 16:11:38 von hurtta

AbbieNormal writes:

> On 22 Jul 2006 09:19:47 +0300, hurtta@mellu.keh.iki.fi (Kari E.
> Hurtta) wrote:
>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------
> >> X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869
> >> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2869
> >> Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1;
> >> reply-type=original
> >> Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

> >These headers are actually conflict. If you have
> > Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
> >
> >then your mail is 7-bit only and US-ASCII should be used as charset
> >value (US-ASCII is subset of iso-8859-1). That means that content-type
> >should be
> >
> > Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> >
>
> I'm using the default OE settings for sending plain text emails.
> Microsoft not being RFC-compliant? What else is new?

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

yy

> Anyway, since you might know this off the top of your head, which
> headers are required that would make an email minimally RFC-compliant?

Well :-) Also my (*) MUA does similar error.
It produces

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

yy

In here it does not recognize that UTF-8 can be safely replaced
with US-ASCII without changing semantic (it does that replacing
for ISO-8859-* sets.)

In generally it is not possible to replace

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=any-set

with

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

That changes semantic. For example if headers are

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-7

it is imposible from that information only say, is
result same is charset=US-ASCII is used (actually
often it isn't.) UTF-7 charset is is always 7bit
(it is actually 7-bit encoding of unicode.)

Actually. I have see mails with

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

where content of mail looks like UTF-7 encoded.
That is not very readable. At least on some
mailer have bug that they replaces

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-7

with

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

( I think that it was some version of Pine and
Mozilla which I have seen UTF-7 encoded text
with incorrect labeling, but I can be wrong
about mailer. )

Incorrect replacing of charset values is much
bigger bug than not replacing it....

/ Kari Hurtta

((*) 'my' as MUA author)