From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com Sent: Tuesday, October 7, 1997 2:28 AM To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup" Subject: VIRUSES IN E-MAILS?
From: Patrick Douglas Crispen To: heb_roots_chr@geocities.com Subject: VIRUSES IN E-MAILS? Patrick Douglas Crispen wrote: > >Thank you for your recent letter concerning e-mail-borne viruses. > Unfortunately, most of the virus warnings floating around the Net right > now are hoaxes. There are, however, two rules that you need to > remember to be able to sort out the true virus warnings from the > hoaxes, and to protect yourself from becoming infected with a virus > or a trojan horse: > > 1. Regular, plain-text e-mail letters -- the plain old vanilla > e-mail letters (like this one) that you receive every day -- > can *NOT* contain viruses or trojan horses. Period. It does > not matter what you may have heard from your friends, > co-workers, newspaper, government, or religious leaders. > Plain e-mail letters can not contain viruses or trojan horses. > It does not matter WHAT the subject line of the letter is -- > "Good Times," "Penpal Greetings," "Deeyenda," "Irina," > "AOL4FREE," "I AM A REALLY MEAN VIRUS AND I AM GOING TO EAT > YOUR HARD DRIVE" -- plain text e-mail letters simply can not > contain viruses or trojan horses. If anyone tells you > otherwise, they are either lying or are badly misinformed. > > 2. Files that are attached to e-mail letters -- like Lotus or > Excel spreadsheet files and *especially* Microsoft Word files > -- can, and probably do, contain viruses and trojan horses. > How can you protect yourself? VIRUS CHECK EVERY SINGLE > ATTACHMENT THAT YOU RECEIVE THROUGH E-MAIL (AND EVERY > SINGLE FILE THAT YOU DOWNLOAD FROM THE INTERNET). If > your boss, best friend, worst enemy, family pet, significant other, > insignificant other, teacher, tribal member, or political > leader sends you a file attached to an e-mail document, VIRUS > CHECK THAT FILE. It does not matter what the subject line of > the e-mail letter to which that file is attached is called. > VIRUS CHECK THAT FILE! > >> .~~~. )) >> (\__/) .' ) )) Patrick Douglas Crispen >> /o o \/ .~ Network Solutions Inc. / The InterNIC >> {o_, \ { Business E-mail: crispen@internic.net >> / , , ) \ Personal E-mail: crispen@brigadoon.com >> `~ '-' \ } )) http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/ >> _( ( )_.' >> '---..{____} Warning: squirrels. > ************************************************************************