If you're tired of seeing your e-mail server buried in an avalanche of recreational attachments, take a look at one tech's growing zero-tolerance block list.
Tired of dealing with gigabytes of movies, music, and other unwork-related e-mail attachments? You either have no company policy or a policy that allows personal use of the corporate e-mail system and soon, that 3MB movie clip of an entertaining European commercial has exploded into half a gigabyte generously distributed across inboxes, personal folders, and sent items. Before long you find yourself submitting a purchase request for additional disk subsystems and an expanded backup solution.
Okay, so this might be a slight exaggeration but you get the picture.
Curious to know just how many such files we were inadvertently processing, I set up a simple rule on the mail server to redirect all messages with certain types of attachments to a database where they could be reviewed and subsequently released to their intended destination if business-related -- or unceremoniously disposed of if not. In just a few days, we had trapped 502 MB of attachments, not one byte of which was work-related. Weeks later, the filter is still in place and, quite remarkably, not a single employee has complained. The database is growing and so are our plans to distribute a CD as a holiday gift to the employees. I think we're going to call it "The Best of the Blocked".
In case you're interested in trying something similar, here is the list of attachments we're currently blocking. This is still a work in progress and obviously would not be appropriate for all environments. Please feel free to suggest additions.
Blocked file extensions
- asf: Video file for Windows Media Player
- asx: Windows media metafile for redirecting streaming media away from a browser to Windows Media Player
- avi: Audio video interleave file
- bat: Batch file
- cmd: Command file
- js: Javascript source code
- jse: Javascript
- mp3: MPEG audio stream
- mpeg: MPEG audio stream
- mpg: MPEG audio stream
- pps: PowerPoint Slideshow (We have blocked a lot of these.)
- scr: Screensaver
- sd: Audio file
- wav: Waveform audio file
- wm: Windows media audio/visual file
- wma: Windows media audio file
- wmd: Windows media download file
- wmv: Windows media file (We have captured more of these than any other file type.)
- wmx: Audio playlist or Windows media player audio/visual shortcut.
- wmz: Windows Media compressed skin file
- wpl: Draxy Software wallpaper sequencer
Becky Roberts has worked as a database developer for the British aerospace industry, a mainframe programmer for a ceramics manufacturer, an applications developer for an employment agency, and an IT-do-everything person for international management consultants. She's currently playing with the networks in a chemical plant in Texas. Becky is an avid mountain biker and rock climber; she lives in innercity Houston with too many pets, including four cats, three ferrets, and two teenagers.
