Off Topic (I'll keep it short) Re: Virus warning

On Thu, 26 Mar 1998 11:05:12 -0500, Thomas Barclay
<Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca>
wrote:

>It 
>used to be, you could not get a virus from email. Due to all the 
>active content now, Web links, active X controls, Java enabled mail 
>readers, etc, I am not ENTIRELY sure this is as true as it once was. 

I was keeping it simple. You do have a point, but not really with Java.
Java
shouldn't be able to do anything truly permanent. I think it's
technically
possible to do it with ActiveX but I haven't heard of this happening so
it may
not be trully possible. Even opening e-mail in Internet Explorer won't
launch
ActiveX components in the message by default (as far as I remember).
However,
there's a setting that allows you to launch a web URL if it's in your
e-mail.
This allows someone to mail an HTML document that links to their site,
and
that site could have ActiveX controls that do something nasty. This is
more
than just theoretically possible.

The upshot is that you can't transfer a virus in e-mail. However, if you
use
your web browser for e-mail then you can run some risks if you don't
play with
your security settings in your browser.

For the uninitiated, I will admit that the distinction is moot.

>I'm not positive, but it isn't the same world as it once was. The 
>more active content becomes and the more capable mailers and other 
>tools become in handling such content (and the more automagically 
>they do it....), the greater the risk of such viruses. 

As far as I know, it hasn't been done. I suspect we'll hear of something
nasty
in the next year or so.

>Frankly, I 
>turn all of that stuff off in my mailer, and I set my browser 
>settings to confirm all that stuff (and sites that pop up ten million 
>frames go instantly on my hate list). 

I do the same. I like to practice safe surfing.

>AOL might be a virus....

Hey, I like AOL. If it wasn't for their free AOL start up software CDs,
I
wouldn't have any coasters in my office.

Allan Goodall	     agoodall@sympatico.ca

"Once again, the half time score, 
 Alien Overlords: 142,000. Scotland: zip."
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