>According to last week's New Scientist there are now viruses that
>infect your PC as soon as a text message is opened.
I don't believe everything I read in the papers; if any event of
which you have personal knowledge attracts a press report, can you
recognize what happened from reading it?
Also, as a programmer in a former existence, I'm intrigued what
mechanism is invoked to initiate a malignant software action through
a plain-text file by merely opening it for reading. It may be that
some weakness (AKA "feature") of Bill Gates' software allows that to
happen if the recipient happens to be using the particular e-mail
client software targeted by the perpetrator. If you are using
software that was "free" with windoze I can only observe that you get
what you pay for ...
Putting my money where my mouth is - I defy anyone to infect my Mac
with a virus through the agent of a plain-text e-mail message.
(Please make any such attempts off the list, as others may not be so
willing to suffer attack!) I know from experience that there are Mac
viruses, and that various MS Word & Excel macros may work
cross-platform, but none of those can deliver their payload through a
plain-text message without some subsequent action.
> One answer is to view emails on line before downloading them and
>deleting anything suspicious but its hardly practical when looking
>at a forum with 20 or 30 messages on it.
I agree - consideration is being given to some mechanism that will
prevent attachments being posted to the list - either by persuading
avnet to configure things thus, or by migrating to another list host.
Anyone with views on this, please e-mail me directly (ie OFF the
list).
regards
Rowland
| Rowland Carson Europa Club Membership Secretary
| Europa 435 G-ROWI PFA #16532 EAA #168386
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