h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The one I see time and time again is the email message warning you about a new computer virus that has just hit the Internet. It takes a different approach to the usual threat of fear-pain-death and tricks you into thinking you're doing your mates a favour by sending it to them.

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh! Nonononononononono!

Ahem.

I don't like chain mails. Not one bit. Not at all. Very, very, bad things. Not good.

I just thought that needed pointing out.

26199

Yeah, especially when you know fine that your computer is not set to automatically open any executables sent to you fom dubious sources (like most people) and so you know fine that your computer is safe.

Another kind of annoying email chain letter is the one that goes:
"I don't know how this works, but if you email this to all your friends a cool movie will play!"
And then you do, and then it doesn't. Bleah.

I don't have the problem of the executables running automatically and trashing the machine. I don't use windows

there's an awful lot of them that are hoaxes too....
http://www.europe.datafellows.com/virus-info/hoax/

Wow, your house must be dark inside.

Well I do use a windowing system, just not of the Redmond monoculture (why are monocultures a problem in biology - one virus can wipe the whole thing out, just like in computers). I use the old fashioned X-Window system, it's a unix thing!

Skuse me while I plug my club: The h2g2 Freaks
http://www.h2g2.com/A239258

Way! go unix!

Mmmm....unix

and what about those hilarious quiz chain mails, the ones which require you to write out all your details and send them to people, you then get all your freinds sending you lengthy lists of their details which you can never really be bothered to read but don't have the heart to delete.

Skim read for useful facts and then delete

Regardless of how you manage your email (I use Winbloze, but don't have a problem with automatically opening executables... in fact, I've never heard of anyone who did), most of the virus warnings you might receive from a chain letter are hoaxes, anyway. I've only received one of them, and a few minutes perusing the Symantec web site revealed it for what it was. This one was pretty clever, though... it said the virus was a time-activated one contained in a popular freeware game called Elf Bowling. I had just played the game on a friend's computer two days before getting the letter.

The warning chain letters are not a problem compared to a real virus. If enough people had sense to check it out then they'd find this out.

Real virii contained within executables or documents attached to the email are. This is where you need to be careful (and it sounds like you are) about not auto opening attachments. Not having a windows based system means I won't get most of the problems this causes. Virii can be spread without knowing - I've seen it happen where I work and it causes all sorts of problems. For examples see anything about Melissa and varients.

I'd be surprised if any modern e-mail packages auto-run attachments... the problem, as always, lies with the user. Outlook Express explicitly warns when you double-click on something that it might be unsafe... but how many people are going to click 'cancel'?

I did, however, hear about something of a loophole with Outlook... whereby it interprets e-mails as web pages and automatically runs any ActiveX content. ActiveX being full of security loopholes *anyway*, there's very little limit to what a clever programmer can do from there...

99.9% of the time, though, if you're aware of the dangers you're pretty darn safe.

26199

Unix,
because if God had wanted us to keep things simple he would have given us smaller brains .

What's so bad about simple?