SA Bugzilla – Bug 4894
Outlook 11 wrecks GTUBE test
Last modified: 2006-05-05 07:31:17 UTC
A correspondent was trying to test his SpamAssassin installation with the GTUBE test message. Unfortunately, it seems that some combination of Outlook 11 and/or Hotmail breaks the GTUBE signature. Seeing as Microsoft are not likely to start behaving, perhaps there should be a workaround for detecting this particular type of wreckage.
Created attachment 3512 [details] Sample message Test message sent from MS Outlook 2003 (11.8010.6568) on Windows XP w/ SP2, pasted in the GTUBE string into the message body and expected it to work. You will notice that the GTUBE string is not just wrapped; Outlook has in fact replaced a character in the string (the second full stop) with a newline.
Created attachment 3513 [details] GTUBE_OUTLOOK rule to supplement regular GTUBE test rule As an idle thought, a separate rule for the wrecked GTUBE might make sense, as then you can enable/disable it at your discretion without mucking with the proper GTUBE rule.
GTUBE provides you a standard way of creating a test message that a spam filter is supposed to treat as spam, even though it really is just a standard test message, not really spam. If some version of Outlook used in some particular way does not create the proper GTUBE test message, then either figure out how to configure Outlook so it doesn't mess up the GTUBE formatting, or see if Microsoft has an upgrade that fixes the problem, or else use something other than Outlook to generate a GTUBE test of your SpamAssassin installation. SpamAssassin behaves correctly if it recognizes the GTUBE standard message, allowing you to have a way of testing your installation. There is no reason to recognize an almost-GTUBE message. It isn't as if spammers are using Outlook to send GTUBE spams and SpamAssassin has to protect against them even if they get munged en route. Closing as WONTFIX.
Users who are Outlook victims are typically not capable of solving this sort of problem on their own. They would expect a "standard" test case to work with their "standard" [sic] email client. Devising a workaround for them might be a nice gesture, and/or reduce the amount of needless problem reports caused by a known flaw in Outlook. But it's your call, obviously.
Part of my decision here is that I don't really believe that Outlook cannot handle a 66 character long line without destructively altering it. I don't have Outlook to test with, but I notice that http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=326257 is about a problem "Your Internet e-mail messages may not be wrapped at the number of characters that you select in the Automatically wrap text at option in the Internet Format dialog box. Instead, Outlook wraps the message at 72 characters." That is longer than the GTUBE line. I think that this really ought to be addressed at the Outlook end. I am not adverse to someone who knows Outlook letting us know what the proper configuration options need to be to keep it from wrapping a 68 character line so that information can be added to documentation.