BUG: All messages containing the text ".pif" are silently dropped.

Any message containing the text ".pif" will be dropped.

I guess this is a side-effect of filtering out .pif files being sent, but
implemented poorly. Its annoying and unnecessary to blanket ban a four-letter
combo.

This seems to crop up annoyingly often in normal usages - frequently a URL
will get dropped: www.piffle.com as an example, or .pif in a query string.

Suspect that other words are blocked as well, such as ".exe".

Greetings,

I'm afraid this is not a bug, this is by design.

There's plenty of others things banned, for instance, pics.php.

It's not just to ban files being sent, but worms being spread via hyperlinks over Messenger.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger/MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2007 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.
--


"Mark Churchill" <> wrote in message
news:6EA25D86-007D-49EB-BD47-...
> Any message containing the text ".pif" will be dropped.
>
> I guess this is a side-effect of filtering out .pif files being sent, but
> implemented poorly. Its annoying and unnecessary to blanket ban a four-letter
> combo.
>
> This seems to crop up annoyingly often in normal usages - frequently a URL
> will get dropped: www.piffle.com as an example, or .pif in a query string.
>
> Suspect that other words are blocked as well, such as ".exe".

Yeah I figured that would be the case. Unfortunately the implementation
leaves a lot to be desired.

Its appears that this is such too broad a block for such specific case. I
assumed it was an emergency fix at a fairly low level. Third party MSN
clients report a connection error when sending such a message, which supports
this theory.

At the minimum a notification to the user that the message has failed would
be required. Most of my collegues have had a couple of "What URL? / I sent it
5mins ago / Oh I thought you were talking abstract design" - and some of them
are considering moving to other networks (which is bloody annoying as I have
only recently managed to stop using my icq client).

I really think this needs attention. I realise this only really affects a
small subset of the community - but I'd like to think that an improved
filtering mechanism could only benefit the product in the long run.

"Jonathan Kay [MVP]" wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I'm afraid this is not a bug, this is by design.
>
> There's plenty of others things banned, for instance, pics.php.
>
> It's not just to ban files being sent, but worms being spread via hyperlinks over Messenger.
>
> --
> Jonathan Kay
> Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger/MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
> Associate Expert
> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
> Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
> All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2007 Jonathan Kay.
> You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.
> --
>
>
> "Mark Churchill" <> wrote in message
> news:6EA25D86-007D-49EB-BD47-...
> > Any message containing the text ".pif" will be dropped.
> >
> > I guess this is a side-effect of filtering out .pif files being sent, but
> > implemented poorly. Its annoying and unnecessary to blanket ban a four-letter
> > combo.
> >
> > This seems to crop up annoyingly often in normal usages - frequently a URL
> > will get dropped: www.piffle.com as an example, or .pif in a query string.
> >
> > Suspect that other words are blocked as well, such as ".exe".
>
>