(no subject)

[theweaselking]

"Outlook has blocked access to the following potentially unsafe attachments:"

Gee, FUCK YOU, Outlook. I made that registry patch, he damn well needs that registry patch, and I sent it to him knowingly and deliberately. Potentially unsafe? "Unsafe" is what the poor, stupid bastard who designed that particular "feature" is. I want the ability to send virus-infected animated pictures of Warren Ellis in a tutu that not only *edit* the registry but cause it to grow arms and legs and hold the recipient down while kicking him repeatedly in the fur-emblazoned spunk nuggets. Why do I want this feature? Because I just very well MIGHT feel the need to use it someday, and it is not the place of my office software to tell me what I may or may not send via email

On a related note, Ron makes the worst coffee in human history. It is, however, nearly solid, and at 2AM, it's good to have a hot cup of coffee that can hold the spoon upright until it dissolves.

Comments

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

I believe the sysadmin position is that we'll stop being paternalistic when (most of) the users stop being children, belike.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

Sad but true.

I'm starting to wonder if George Tenet didn't have a point.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Except that *this* particular restriction is stupid and pointless.

#1: I can get around it by zipping the file, and it then requires simply *two* clicks to make Outlook run it for me - one on the zip file, one on the contained reg entry.

#2: Outlook allows sending of word documents and excel spreadsheets without any checking at all.

#3: Outlook RUNS THINGS, period.

This is approximately equivalent to you buying a car, and having an onboard system prevent you from making right turns because right turns have been known to be involved in accidents amongst people who do not look before making right turns - and so, any time you want to turn right, you must instead turn left three times.

And being told this is an important safety feature.

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

#1: I can get around it by zipping the file, and it then requires simply *two* clicks to make Outlook run it for me - one on the zip file, one on the contained reg entry.

Which means you have to take more positive action to do something stupid. And I mean that in a real sese; this two-stage feature has prevented more than one of my users from making my afternoon more annoying than it might overwise have been.

#2: Outlook allows sending of word documents and excel spreadsheets without any checking at all.

Word and Excel these days also - unless deliberately disabled, but certainly by default - require additional positive action to run anything contained in them. Certainly enough to push the requirement from "a moment's bad judgement" up to "genuine stupidity".

#3: Outlook RUNS THINGS, period.

Only if someone's enabled the "I am insufficiently paranoid, please bend me over and bugger me senseless" option, by default, these days. The way I configure it, even less so.

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

I note also that your sysadmin can disable this feature or make it apply to other extensions, pretty much any way he wants. Maybe you should get him to do that?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

90% of the company are salescritters. I'm simply annoyed that, with a "dangerous" attachment, there's no ability to say "Yes, I want to do that". There's no way, as the recipient, to get that file, and there's no way for the sender to know it was blocked without the recipient calling him.

This is very much sub-optimal. One might even call it mindbogglingly counterproductive.