Android Replies to Git List getting rejected

Android Replies to Git List getting rejected

[Drew Northup]

I am not 100% sure of the root cause of this, but I have gotten the
following error message back from vger via GMail at least twice now:

"Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

      git@vger.kernel.org

 Technical details of permanent failure:
 Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the
recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for
further information about the cause of this error. The error that the
other server returned was: 550 550 5.7.1 Content-Policy reject msg:
The message contains HTML subpart, therefore we consider it SPAM or
Outlook Virus.  TEXT/PLAIN is accepted.! BF:<H 0.0255687>;
S1755748Ab2HGTHS (state 17)."

I was replying to 20120806223113.GA16298@sigill.intra.peff.net
(Subject: Re: [PATCH] Avoid crippled getpass function on Solaris).
Hopefully all of the direct replies went through, but the list denied
it. Some other replies have worked just fine.

Before the usual raft of "you configured your mail client incorrectly"
I would like to note that such things are not configurable in the
Android GMail App. If this is an app issue I'll (attempt to) take it
up with them (and expect zero results). (I am writing this from the
webmail interface in the hopes that it goes through.)

Am I the ONLY ONE seeing this?

-- 
-Drew Northup
--------------------------------------------------------------
"As opposed to vegetable or mineral error?"
-John Pescatore, SANS NewsBites Vol. 12 Num. 59

Re: Android Replies to Git List getting rejected

[John 'Warthog9' Hawley]

It's pretty simple: you sent HTML mail to vger.kernel.org, and it
explicitly rejects all HTML e-mail.  GMail, particularly from Android,
apparently doesn't have a way to bypass sending HTML mail (it's been a
much maligned bug).

Before you ask, no I very much doubt vger will change it's policy with
regards to HTML mail, and honestly it's a policy I fully support.

Your only bet is to use a mail client that won't send HTML, K-9 or
Kaiten should work.

- John 'Warthog9' Hawley

On 08/07/2012 01:24 PM, Drew Northup wrote:
> I am not 100% sure of the root cause of this, but I have gotten the
> following error message back from vger via GMail at least twice now:
> 
> "Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
> 
>       git@vger.kernel.org
> 
>  Technical details of permanent failure:
>  Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the
> recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for
> further information about the cause of this error. The error that the
> other server returned was: 550 550 5.7.1 Content-Policy reject msg:
> The message contains HTML subpart, therefore we consider it SPAM or
> Outlook Virus.  TEXT/PLAIN is accepted.! BF:<H 0.0255687>;
> S1755748Ab2HGTHS (state 17)."
> 
> I was replying to 20120806223113.GA16298@sigill.intra.peff.net
> (Subject: Re: [PATCH] Avoid crippled getpass function on Solaris).
> Hopefully all of the direct replies went through, but the list denied
> it. Some other replies have worked just fine.
> 
> Before the usual raft of "you configured your mail client incorrectly"
> I would like to note that such things are not configurable in the
> Android GMail App. If this is an app issue I'll (attempt to) take it
> up with them (and expect zero results). (I am writing this from the
> webmail interface in the hopes that it goes through.)
> 
> Am I the ONLY ONE seeing this?
> 

Re: Android Replies to Git List getting rejected

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 01:33:23PM -0600, John 'Warthog9' Hawley wrote:
> It's pretty simple: you sent HTML mail to vger.kernel.org, and it
> explicitly rejects all HTML e-mail.  GMail, particularly from Android,
> apparently doesn't have a way to bypass sending HTML mail (it's been a
> much maligned bug).

Yeah, sigh.  Drew, I suggest that you star the following bug:

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=8712

... and perhaps leave a comment in the bug report that you can't
interact with the git mailing list because of this limitation.

I'm sure you know (since you indicated that you sent your e-mail via
the web interface of Gmail), that this is at least something you can
control in the desktop/web version of Gmail (just enable "Plain text"
mode) --- but it would certainly be nice if users had the choice of
whether they wanted to participate on vger mailing lists using the
Android application, versus the Web interface, or using Mutt or Pine
on a Linux box.

Regards,

					- Ted

Re: Android Replies to Git List getting rejected

[Eugene Sajine]

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 4:55 PM, Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 01:33:23PM -0600, John 'Warthog9' Hawley wrote:
>> It's pretty simple: you sent HTML mail to vger.kernel.org, and it
>> explicitly rejects all HTML e-mail.  GMail, particularly from Android,
>> apparently doesn't have a way to bypass sending HTML mail (it's been a
>> much maligned bug).
>
> Yeah, sigh.  Drew, I suggest that you star the following bug:
>
> http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=8712
>
> ... and perhaps leave a comment in the bug report that you can't
> interact with the git mailing list because of this limitation.
>
> I'm sure you know (since you indicated that you sent your e-mail via
> the web interface of Gmail), that this is at least something you can
> control in the desktop/web version of Gmail (just enable "Plain text"
> mode) --- but it would certainly be nice if users had the choice of
> whether they wanted to participate on vger mailing lists using the
> Android application, versus the Web interface, or using Mutt or Pine
> on a Linux box.
>
> Regards,
>
>                                         - Ted
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

There were several discussions about that on the list and
unfortunately list moderators didn't pay enough attention to it.
Android Gmail sends totally valid multipart message that has HTML and
plain-text part.
List being unable to process those correctly and cut off HTML part is
a limitation.
I personally feel that i could and would be more active on the list if
not for this limitation.

<rant>
Don't want to accept HTML messages - fine. But don't tell me which
program to use for my email, especially when I'm sending totally valid
message, so take my plain text message part and use it.
</rant>

Thanks,
Eugene

Re: Android Replies to Git List getting rejected

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 05:25:02PM -0400, Eugene Sajine wrote:
> <rant>
> Don't want to accept HTML messages - fine. But don't tell me which
> program to use for my email, especially when I'm sending totally valid
> message, so take my plain text message part and use it.
> </rant>

The problem is that HTML messages is a really good signal for SPAM and
exploits sent by spambots trying to break into Windows machines.  So
from the perspective of keeping the vger lists spam-free, it works
very well.  Also, from a practical point of view, most of the mailers
which send HTML also tend to mangle patches, and since most of the
vger lists are very developer centric, having users use MUA's that
mangle patches is highly unfortunate.

So having a hard requirement has been often useful for developers who,
say, are unfortunate enough to work at a company that mandates the use
of Lotus Notes, since it's a nice way to force the company to set up
an alternate IMAP/SMTP infrastructure for developers who need to
interact with the Linux Kernel community.  Speaking as someone who
used to work at IBM's Linux Technology Center, let me assure you there
are some unappreciated, but still very valid, side effects of the
current policies in force on vger.

There are other solutions to the spam problem, of course --- such as
diverting all of vger's mail through Postini, which is uses the same
anti-spam technology that GMail uses, and which is pretty good.  (Far
better than Symantec's anti-virus filtering service, which is what
mit.edu uses, so I've had experience with both.)

But the tin foil hat community would probably be all suspicious about
routing all of vger through Google's servers, even though pretty much
all of the vger mailing lists are archived on web sites such as
Gmane....  and truth to tell, the current solution which VGER has for
filtering spam works pretty well, all things considered.  It's rather
unfortunate that Android-only GMail users are an unintended casualty.

						- Ted

Re: Android Replies to Git List getting rejected

On 7 August 2012 17:39, Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 05:25:02PM -0400, Eugene Sajine wrote:
>> <rant>
>> Don't want to accept HTML messages - fine. But don't tell me which
>> program to use for my email, especially when I'm sending totally valid

Perhaps this one:
https://code.google.com/p/k9mail/
which can send messages with a mere

> User-Agent: K-9 Mail for Android
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain;
>  charset=UTF-8
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

You'll need to turn on imap access in your gmail account.

Cheers!
-p orpen

(Yes, I know, I didn't send this from my android gadget.)