[SpamCop-List] Re: This site best viewed with anything but IE?!?!

[Mike Easter]

Steven Maesslein wrote:
> Gary Wardell
>
>> In what way are the headers foobared?
>
> http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/121.html
> http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/122.html

Those faq/s don't really tell the OL story.  I think it is 'easiest' -
altho' not necessarily quick - to describe the OL situation in contrast
to OE, which does a good job of storing the original mailitem and making
it accessible to the user for submitting into the webparser or email
submissions.  Whatever other things might be wrong with OE, it is useful
for submitting an original spamitem to spamcop.

OL functions completely differently.  OL is a MAPI client for the MS
Office suite - not at all designed to be a spam handler submitter.  To
fulfill its mapi role, MS decided to have OL detach the headers from the
body, and then to convert the body into a 'mapi-ized' version of the
original and store that in a proprietary store form.

Then, when some user wants the headers and body to submit to some abuse
desk or spamcop, the original is gone.

However, one/OL can 'remanufacture' a semblance of the original by
fetching up the headers from where they were saved, and then
'de-mapi-izing' the body into a semblance of html - but not the
original.  Among the other troubles this creates a discrepancy in what
the headers say in the Content-Type information line and what the
content type of the body actually is.  Sometimes.  SpamCop is very
attentive to content type information for its body parse.

At one time SpamCop/Julian 'wisely' jettisoned support of OL because of
the seeming impossibility of working with these problems;  but then
later, because of the popularity of OL, SC/JH somehow managed to provide
a sort of workaround.  And 3rd party software folks have also helped out
with the problem of OL submissions.  But, the 'product' - namely the
'true' original spam - is no longer there after OL stores it.

-- 
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin