Several of my customers seem to have this guy running their IP departments. I can't email them zip files, exe files, or sometimes even Word files. They often can't access an FTP site, or Dropbox either. One customer's IT "quarantines" my emails if they suspect the attachments, and doesn't tell the recipient. I have to send a second email to him to let him know what's happening, and he has to then plead with IT to get it.
With one customer, I can rename a .ZIP file to .ZAP, and that gets through.
Does anybody have sneaky ways to send files to people, that would maybe evade The Preventer?
--
John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom laser controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation
Seems reasonable to me. There is way too much hostile stuff out there and the average office monkey clicks on things just for the hell of it.
The only bit that is wrong is that the recipient is not notified that an email has been quarantined as possibly hostile.
Their defences are not very good then (ie pathetic). Any half decent defensive screening software will recognise ZIP files from their header content. This is probably why your Word docs get quarantined too.
If you send them as Word97 they should get through unscathed.
Try Word97 for documents first. UUencode is probably ancient enough that you will get that through most modern corporate filters as well.
Have had some success in the past with password protected zip files. In that case the blocker was unzipping the files and blocking it because of the included executable. The password blocked that process. Won't help if they summarily block anything they can't decode. Same goes for encrypting the files.
You can run an http file server and email links to the files. Essentially, your own dropbox. But that opens up a whole mess of security/confidentiality issues.
If your problems are few in number, ask the recipient to contact his IT department and determine a solution that lets HIM get his job done.
I use FTP for anything over 10MB (total encoded), as many E-mail providers now bounce anything larger.
Just use a password-protected site _and_ encrypt the data as well. ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
One biggish customer has in-house wi-fi with the same restrictions. So you walk down the block to Starbucks...
Actually, I've never been able to get on their wi-fi.
--
John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom laser controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation
Send it to their home email, or put it on your public web page so they can find it with Google. ;)
Renaming zips usually works.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058
hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net
Great idea! send TEXT email to your client telling them to pick up whatever you want them to get, asking for confirmation of receipt of notifying email. That way, if they have problem they can bother their IT person.
I have had attachment rejection without notification problems forever! Thus, we install a rule, either I, or the client recipient, MUST always close the loop and send back a confirmation. Only one person does the confirming, else ...you get the idea. Sine it's a hardship for clients to do that, plus they're paying me, I usually do the confirmations.
The nuisance extends a bit with several govt clients! Their fire wall simply takes one look at a zipped .file and if it sees anything in there, like .exe file; the email evaporates without ANYONE being told. To get around that: The following works *IF* they accept zip files at all. I simply RENAME every file that goes into the zip a *.txt file app1.exe becomes app1exe.txt application2.exe becomes application2exe.txt ...and so on
After renaming, zip them all up, so when the server looks through the directory of the zip file it only sees .txt files and lets the attachment through. Afterall it can't tell a .exe file that's been zipped from a regular .txt file that's been zipped.
Now, several won't let *any* .zip through, but will let .doc and .pdf through. But to get through that takes a 'knowledgeable' receiver. Strange since a .doc or .pdf can be just as dangerous as a .zip
Doesn't "IT" stand for "Intelligence Terminated"? .PIZ files went straight thru Atmel. As far as I know, there's no legitimate file extension PIZ :-) ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
In my humble opinion, "I.T" is the janitorial work of engineering. They have no business restricting anything since by and large, they have no clue what they are doing.
Seriously, I know one major telecom firm that locks out their own W-2 engineers from the very systems they were hired to monitor and service. ...Yet contractors and outside consultants can VPN to their heart's desire. Companies like these deserve to crumble... eventually.
Then plop the file on a http site. include the directory in the robots.txt file so the crawlers don't index it. Password protect the file, and make the directory name some hash, like \web\cfd\djient8edneje\ Use a different hash for each customer.
Interesting that PIZ is a renamed zip file. Perhaps you are not the first to think of that?
PIZ Pizzicato Music Score (ARPEGE sprl) PIZ Renamed Zip File PIZ Pizza Connection 2 Saved Game (Virgin Interactive Entertainment) PIZZA Unknown Apple II File (found on Golden Orchard Apple II CD Rom)
years and years ago we used to make fun of the 'geek' accountants. They reported straight to the Pres and caused so many problems and wre, quite frankly nerds. Now, today The CFO is often the MOST respected man in the most important position in the company.
Today, we tend to ridicule the IP people, think of them as geeks, not quite in touch with our Product Development, a 'necessary' evil, not part of the main stream of the company at all and report directly to the Pres.. Bet you as industry matures, the next step will be the CIP, will make or break a firm and become, along with the the CFO, the two most powerful and important people in a firm.
As long as it's a brown parcel envelope and not a white envelope.
White envelopes go through the mail sorting machines, which assume that letters are flexible. The paper path is far from straight, and anything solid like a flash drive will rip through the envelope and wind up in the postal lost and found with 1000 others that look just like it.
--
Reply in group, but if emailing add one more
zero, and remove the last word.
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.