> In fact, even if the
> message actually came from the person whose name is attached, you
> still don't know if it is clean. Many email viruses (viri?) send
> themselves by reading the address book of the infected machine.
> Someone you know may be contagious and not know it.
This has happened to me. I sh--canned the attachment immediately. Could
not figure out why Pat Washburn, respected member of the autox list and a
personal friend, would be sending me a direct mail with 1) the subject line
from a recent, legitimate, thread on the autox@autox.team.net list and 2)
some kind of executable attachment.
Of course Pat knew nothing of this. He had received the list mail about the
thread, but had not joined that thread. The virus had pulled the subject
line from his mailbox, and sent it to me and others it either found in his
address book or in emails in his mailbox.
Bottom line, if it looks like it's from a buddy, make him prove it before
you open the attachment. The text of the message should directly tell you
about the attachment, what it is and why you want it. Furthermore, there
should be some personal content in the text which convinces you that it is
really something that was typed BY your buddy FOR you personally.
I'd discourage the use of attachments at all unless there is no other way to
convey the content. To quote Guy Kawasaki, "only a bozo sends files when it
is not necessary". Sending any kind of text material in a manner other than
plain email seems rude, ignorant, and possibly leading to easy acceptance of
viruses in the future. Unfortunately, there are those that just don't "get"
this concept. One of them told me privately that he thought the concept
that sending unsolicited attachments was poor netiquette was "all in your
mind". Well. Maybe when he has been dealing with 200 emails a day for 15
years he might have some feel for email netiquette.
I applaud Mark Bradakis for designing his lists to "just say no" to
attachments. It does not prevent, however, dangerous attachments from
APPEARING to come from one of his lists. So the best solution I can see is,
don't send 'em unless you have to, be sure the recipient can be confident in
you, and don't open anything yourself unless you VERY sure what it is. The
virus mongers are always going to be one jump ahead of the good guys, so be
careful out there. If you are not part of the solution, you could be part
of the problem.
Phil Ethier West Side Saint Paul Minnesota USA
1970 Lotus Europa, 1992 Saturn SL2, 1986 Suburban, 1962 TR4 CT2846L
pethier@isd.net http://www.mnautox.com/ http://www.vtr2002.org
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