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Author	Topic: virus warning

mgh Oscar® Winner	I just received this and thought I should pass it along. WORST EVER VIRUS (CNN announced) PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST!! A new virus has just been discovered that has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive ever! This virus was discovered yesterday afternoon by McAfee and no vaccine has been developed. This virus simply destroys Sector Zero from the hard disk,where vital information for it's functioning are stored. This virus acts in the following manner: It sends itself automatically to all contacts on your list with the title A Virtual Card for You. As soon supposed virtual card is opened, the computer freezes so that the user has to reboot. When the ctrl+alt+del keys or the reset button are pressed, the virus destroys Sector Zero, thus permanently destroying the hard disk. Yesterday in just a few hours this virus caused panic in New York, according to news broadcast by CNN. This alert was received by an employee of Microsoft itself. So don't open any emails with subject: A Virtual Card for ! You. As soon as you get the mail, delete it. Please pass this mail to all of your friends. Forward this to everyone in your address book. I would rather receive this 25 times than not at all. Also: Intel announced that a new and very destructive virus was discovered recently. If you receive an email called An Internet Flower For You, do not open it. Delete it right away! This virus removes all dynamic link libraries (.dll files) from your computer. Your computer will not be able to boot up !!
posted 11-08-2001 09:31 AM PT (US)

MWRuger Oscar® Winner	This (Virtual Card For You) is yet another in a long series of viral hoaxes. The link below will take you to SARC (Symantic Antivirus Research Center)to confirm this post. This one is a little different in that it includes a second hoax (Internet Flower for You)at no extra charge. So feel free to open Virtual Cards and Flowers unless that stuff annoys you as much as it does me. http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/virtual.card.for.you.html Just past the above link into your browser and take a look. [Message edited by MWRuger on 11-08-2001]
posted 11-08-2001 09:58 AM PT (US)

mgh Oscar® Winner	MW, Thanks for the clarification.
posted 11-09-2001 06:30 AM PT (US)

Nicolai P. Zwar Oscar® Winner	It is not possible to infect your computer with a virus simply by reading an e-mail (Unless you use Outlook Express, that is. ). All "warnings" stating otherwise are frauds. Always.
posted 11-10-2001 01:43 PM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	Problem is, so many people use Outlook. And many don't believe that it's dangerous if I tell them. NP: The People vs. Larry Flynt (Thomas Newman)
posted 11-10-2001 06:20 PM PT (US)

MWRuger Oscar® Winner	Actually, Outlook XP and Outlook 2000 both block self executing attachments now. In fact, they block so much stuff that it is almost useless for passing data files from work to home. It even blocks .mdb files! The worst part is you can't turn this protection on and off. Even if you send something to yourself it blocks it! Very annoying, but secure. However, I am not sure if this protection extends to Outlook Express.
posted 11-11-2001 11:37 AM PT (US)

jonathan_little Oscar® Winner	Eudora is my email client of choice.
posted 11-11-2001 12:35 PM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	I'm using Eudora as well, for years already. While I'm not 100% happy, it's the best program I've found so far.
posted 11-11-2001 01:16 PM PT (US)

Nicolai P. Zwar Oscar® Winner	quote: Originally posted by MWRuger: Actually, Outlook XP and Outlook 2000 both block self executing attachments now. In fact, they block so much stuff that it is almost useless for passing data files from work to home. It even blocks .mdb files! The worst part is you can't turn this protection on and off. Even if you send something to yourself it blocks it! Very annoying, but secure. Secure, yes, but this is precisely why Outlook is really a piece of garbage, as just about anybody who has ever used another e-mail program can tell you. What good is an e-mail program that doesn't let me receive .exe files or certain other attachments if I want them? And what good is an e-mail program that executes them carelessly right away? I'm not* a Microsoft basher out of principle, but that is totally irresponsible and careless programming. I want to decide for MYSELF what I'll do with attachments, I don't want my reader to decide it for me.
posted 11-12-2001 05:59 AM PT (US)

MWRuger Oscar® Winner	Nicolai: I agree 100%! I don't mind the "feature", but I should be able to turn it off, if I choose. I am a database developer and work with MCSE's and none of us have been able to figure out were to turn this off either. I have used Eudora and Netscape and both have things to recomend them, but as we are a MS partner, we are kinda obligated to use Outlook. Microsoft's strategy of trying to "idiot" proof applications can be extremely annoying. The worst part is, it doesn't work. There is always a better idiot around to break things!
posted 11-12-2001 07:05 AM PT (US)

Beatty Oscar® Winner	I lost this argument before MIME, but here goes anyway: And why should email be expected to handle all file types as attachments? Why attachments at all? Using email for the transfer of n-size files is just wrong-headed. All protocols are not equal or even equivalent. End of rant.
posted 11-12-2001 09:15 AM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	IMHO, the email standard needs an "update" very badly anyway. Like some useful (!) style tags that don't allow people to create unreadable mails, but allow for basic tables and lists. Plus some sort of tracing mechanism so you can see if your mails arrive at the recipient's server. And why not add a possibility to e.g. automatically upload "attachments" to an FTP server and only include the link in the mail... NP: MGV (Michael Nyman)
posted 11-12-2001 09:45 AM PT (US)

Beatty Oscar® Winner	HTML tags in email are an undiluted evil. Or more precisely, email programs that attempt to parse HTML are an undiluted evil and people who send HTML-formatted email are merely deluded. People who write (and promote) email programs that parse HTML are minions of Satan. OK, NOW I'm finished ranting. Really.
posted 11-12-2001 10:20 AM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	Exactly. It's always fun to see newsgroup postings that have only one line which is 20 screens wide. Or mails with white font on white background.
posted 11-12-2001 10:32 AM PT (US)

Nicolai P. Zwar Oscar® Winner	Sending files as an attachment can be very helpful, particularly if you're working together on something with different people in different locations. It's great to send documents and pictures handily zipped across the ocean in no time. But I don't want my e-mail program do the thinking for me, nor do I want it to do something in the background I don't want it to, like opening up browser windows.
posted 11-12-2001 10:41 AM PT (US)

MWRuger Oscar® Winner	Well, I considering how the internet and email came about, we should probably be glad that there is any standard at all. There always seems to be some attempt to bring a new standard to the net. Every time some hacker breaches security, there is a call for a more secure standard than TCP/IP. So far nobody can agree on how a new standard could even be enforced. It would require massive expenditure on new equipment to make such a change and would be resisted by most technology companies. The same goes with new email standards. No one can agree on what they should be and what they should include. The real problem is that any standard has to be backward compatible to machines that can’t use the latest technology or machines whose operating systems are so different that might not even use the same basic character encoding. All this makes it very difficult to reach consensus on what route to take to fix it and a lot of people don’t think it’s broken. Personally, I like the ability of attaching files as it allows me to transfer files to people who may be deep behind fire walls or don’t have access to FTP. Almost everyone has access to email making it very convenient as a work around. With widespread access planned or available just about everywhere (although in some parts of the world it is hideously expensive), larger file transfers and more complicated web pages are going to become the norm.
posted 11-12-2001 11:59 AM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	Of course e-mail attachments are very comfortable. But when people start mailing 4MB files around (which become about 5 or 6MB due to the encoding), it gets tiring. As for standards, the funniest people usually are in Redmond. Everytime something becomes commercially interesting, they try to make something new (and crappy, usually) to replace the standard (not that Outlook complies to any standard...signatures? quoting? ).
posted 11-12-2001 12:11 PM PT (US)

PeterK FishChip	Of course, you can always write your own email application. Full control. Back to the subject, the worst virus to date has been the Nimda virus, unleashed about a week after the NYC/DC attacks. It caused some severe problems for a few days, and still isn't completely wiped out. But, alas, there was more serious, important news to report at the time. But of course, this is all off topic. I wonder why I haven't been scolded for not removing it.
posted 11-12-2001 12:30 PM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	quote: Originally posted by PeterK: Of course, you can always write your own email application. I'm actually thinking about that. No time though, and too many other projects on my mind as well. As for Nimda - wasn't that the thing that only infects Microsoft IIS servers?
posted 11-12-2001 05:04 PM PT (US)

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