Technology of the Month

Most of us by now have received at least one email message where the original attachment is missing and the subject line preceded with {Filename} tag. It is usually accompanied by an attachment called Wesleyan-Attachment-Warning.txt that shows the name of the file that was removed. Some of the most common attachments that are removed are .ZIP, .EXE files and files containing double dots (mostly created by Mac users) such as my notes.january.doc

We explain here the reasons why certain E-mail attachments are blocked and offer alternatives to receiving these.

E-mails, especially files attached to them, may contain dangerous viruses or worms. We use software to electronically scan e-mails and take appropriate actions to protect the computers of our users as well as the Wesleyan network from the viruses and worms.

All e-mails addressed to Wesleyan users are electronically scanned by a program called MailScanner. If the e-mail contains attachments, MailScanner first consults a table containing potentially dangerous file name extensions such as .zip and simply removes them from the e-mail as a safeguard. It informs the recipient that it removed the attachment, but does not send the same information to the sender of the email.

If the attachment is not one of the potentially dangerous ones, it is then passed on to the virus scanner. At Wesleyan, we use software on the mail servers called Sophos to remove any files that are infected with a virus or worm.

Administrative staff, administrative assistants and a few faculty members have been converted to Microsoft Exchange Server. They use Microsoft Outlook or Entourage for accessing their e-mails. All e-mails that are sent by a Wesleyan Microsoft Exchange user to another goes through a similar procedure for file blocking and virus scanning, but using different software. 

The list of extensions that are not allowed as attachments can be found here.

We offer two suggestions on how to bypass the file blocking if you really trust the sender and the file that is being sent to you.

1. When you receive an e-mail indicating that a file has been blocked, open the Wesleyan-Attachment-Warning.txt file that is attached to the mail to note the name of the file that was blocked. You should send an e-mail to the original sender explaining that a file he/she sent was blocked, that he/she should rename the file by removing the extension, such as .zip, replacing the extension with any three characters not on the list of blocked attachments (“aaa” works fine) , and resend the attachment. If this renaming has been done correctly, and the attachment is in fact virus free, you will see it in your e-mail. Now you should save the attachment (rather than double clicking on it to open it) and rename it with the proper extension on your computer so it can be opened.
2. If you are a WesFiles user, you should use the sharing option explained in detail here: https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/xythoswfs/static/en/sharing.jsp. You can create a folder and share it via a ticket that you send to the original sender. By clicking on the ticket link in your email, the sender will be directed to a web folder to which he/she can upload one or more documents and notify you. If you have any questions on how exactly to do this, please contact your desktop support staff or the ITS Helpdesk.