Listers,
It certainly used to be true that you couldn't get infected by an e-mail virus
until you opened an attachment. Viruses can't be contained in text, only in
programs (incuding scripts, macros, applets etc for the more pedantic), and
e-mails, traditionally, are textual.
But with the latest generation of mail readers, this is not necessarilly the
case. E-mail readers such as Microsoft Outlook are capable of displaying HTML
e-mails, i.e. e-mails in the same format as web pages. We know that web pages
can contain programs (there's pleny of examples out there on the web), and HTML
e-mails can contain programs in exactly the same way.
The answer is to turn off HTML e-mails if your e-mail software supports them.
HTML e-mails can always be displayed in textual format, too - the worst that
could happen in just about ever case is you'll loose some formatting. Anything
displayed in textual format can not contain a virus.
Of course, all the old advice about not opening attachments until you virus
check them still hold.
As someone already pointed out, the list (AFAIK) sends out textual e-mails, so
this is currently not an issue for e-mail received from the list.
Hope that clears things up! And thanks for the original warning, too.
Dean
-------------
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 00:33:14 +0100
From: "Graham Stretch" <technical@iwnet.screaming.net>
Subject: Re: Appology / Warning
Hi Bob
I thought that but read the info on the link to cai, unless I am
misunderstanding it, it can happen?
Graham.
- ----- Original Message -----
From: Bob Danielson <75TRSix@snet.net>
To: Graham Stretch <technical@iwnet.screaming.net>; Spitfire List
<spitfires@autox.team.net>; Triumph List <triumphs@autox.team.net>; 2000
Register <2000-Register@autox.team.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2000 10:37 PM
Subject: RE: Appology / Warning
> Graham,
> To my knowledge you CANNOT spread a virus via reading/opening an email,
ONLY
> through email attachments and you have to open the attachment to get the
> virus. I doubt you've infected anyone.
> Bob Danielson
> 75 TR6 - Current Status at
> http://pages.cthome.net/BobD
|