Re: Abiword files blocked by Microsoft Outlook Web Access

As far as I know, this is the first that we've heard of any problem like
this. It is likely a server mis-configuration or an overly-cautious
attachment-type whitelist system (I am not familiar with configuring
Outlook Web Access).

What I can tell you is that AbiWord files are a plain text, XML based
format that cannot store executable code. There is support for
embedding math objects and images, but these are handled internally by
AbiWord plugins, not external applications (like the OLE Embedding used
in MS Word). There should be no reason that AbiWord files are unsafe to
open, as they cannot contain macros or other executable code. You can
verify the contents of an AbiWord file by opening it in a text editor:
You will see your document text, as well as markup tags used by AbiWord
to store your document and style information, and revision/history data,
if turned on (optional, off by default).

Please feel free to reply to the list with any questions or
clarifications. Also, while I am the Windows platform maintainer of
AbiWord, I am speaking only from my own experience, and not as an
official representative of the project. However, this information is
correct to the best of my knowledge. One of the project maintainers may
confirm this information on list, I hope.

Good luck with your research! As I mentioned before, it is likely just
a misconfiguration, and not anything malicious or valid, as AbiWord
documents cannot contain executable code. You may wish to contact the
administrator of your email system to inquire about their attachment policy.

Ryan Pavlik

Court farr wrote:
> I am a student at the University of Kansas and a writer for the
> student newspaper, the University Daily Kansan. I recently
> experienced a problem associated with Abiword and the university's
> e-mail client. I'm researching this problem out of my own curiosity
> and potentially as a piece for the newspaper depending on what I
> learn. I'm communicating with the university's Information Services
> department about this subject and wanted to gather information and
> thoughts from the Abiword community. As information could be used for
> an article, I may follow up on any replies and use applicable
> information.
>
> Now that the formalities are out of the way, onto the description of
> what happened.
>
> I use both Abiword and Microsoft Word for school, depending on what
> computer I am using. Last week, I emailed four documents to myself
> through the school email system, which uses Microsoft Outlook Web
> Access as its primary portal for email access. There were two Word
> documents (.doc) and two Abiword documents (.abw). I am using Abiword
> 2.4.2 downloaded from abisource.com. Later, when I went to claim the
> files from the email, I discovered that while the .doc files could be
> downloaded, the following message was displayed for the .abw files:
>
> "Access to the following potentially unsafe attachments has been
> blocked: Cyprus.abw, History - Bilio.abw"
>
> I have previously forwarded a wide variety of files with the
> universities email system and never had a single file blocked. The
> .doc files were named the same as the .abw files as they were copies
> of the same information. The .doc files were also created with
> Abiword. There are two alternative web based ways to access student
> email. I tried both of them, and I could download the files. I also
> forwarded the files to two other email accounts (a gmail account and a
> hotmail account) and was able to access them. Finally, I used the
> regular Microsoft Outlook, and was able to download the files off
> there also. So it is only Microsoft Outlook Web Access that blocked
> the files.
>
> I am awaiting information from my college to determine why these
> Abiword files are blocked. Has anyone else experienced anything
> similar to this? Can anyone explain why these files would have been
> blocked in this one program? Has Abiword been identified as "unsafe"
> by other programs?
>
> All comments will be appreciated. Feel free to ask for more information.
>
> Courtney Farr
> Columnist, University Daily Kansan
> courtneyfarr@gmail.com
> cfarr@ku.edu
>

-- 
Ryan Pavlik
AbiWord Win32 Platform Maintainer
www.abisource.com
"Optimism is the father that leads to achievement." - Helen Keller
-----------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to
abiword-user-request@abisource.com with the word
unsubscribe in the message body.