[PLUG] Encoding question on e-mail

Keith n6jpa_spam at attbi.com
Fri Aug 2 07:43:38 UTC 2002


On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Rich Shepard wrote:

> 
>   I'm getting some spam now with this line at the bottom:
> 
>    [Error: Formatting error: Non-hexadecimal character in QP encoding]
> 
>   Because of this, I cannot forward it to the originating source. Is this
> something spammers do to prevent being reported and tossed off the net? Is
> it just a fluke or a bug in some Microsoft program? Just what is it and can
> anything be done about it?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Rich

 No, this is a problem with how PINE handles MIME messages, usually with
metamail or whatever is set up to handle MIME messages on your machine.  
The way to handle this is save, not export since PINE tries to help with
metamail to remove the formatting, it to a empty mail folder and use
insert it into a composed message use the ^R read file option. 
 There also may be a way to change the metamail option in the PINE
config section, but I haven't looked. These days I use procmail to separate
MIME attachments and other junk into separate files that I will check with
midnight commander to see if I'm interested in them.
 I long ago gave up sending spam notices to ISP's. The ISP gets thousands of
notices about spam already and you are just adding on to the pile of 
notices they get from the Internet spam cops. /dev/null works wonders
in procmail. 

-- 
Best Regards,  Keith
NW Oregon Radio http://n6jpa.home.attbi.com/ Church of the Bourne Again
Shell. Tux, Save us from the evil Gates of Hell! http://linux.com 
http://freebsd.org http://apple.com





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