Virus Alert!

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:54:14 -0500, "Morgans" wrote in :

... If a warning helps other people to not get hit, I'll take them and send
them, anytime. If a few turn out to be hoaxes, I guess I can live with
that.

There is no evidence that there is a new "Merry Christmas" virus.

There is no information in the variants of the hoax e-mail that
is going to help anyone avoid getting hurt by a brand-new virus.

If you want to sent out routine notices saying, "Watch out
for viruses" and "Be careful what links and attachments you
open," you're free to do so.

Me, I'd rather help people understand how to check chain letters
before passing them on. I think crying wolf is not terribly
helpful. YMMV.

Marty


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"Paul Riley" wrote:

And if you are one of those know-it-all a**holes giving Jim a hard
time, may Santa poop in your stocking!!

And yellow may your snow be...

"Stefan" wrote

Serious virus warnings are *never* distributed by e-mails like the one you
posted. Actually, this e-mail itself can be considered a kind of virus,
because it fills mailboxes, wastes people's time and probably causes some
friendly christmas mails to be deleted unread.

Actually, I would not say never.

Where I work, there are a lot of computers networked together, and a lot of
people bringing things (files and software) from home and sticking into
them, and that adds up to a great chance of something undesirable getting
into the system, and spreading if a warning is not passed.

That is how I got this warning, and admittedly, I did not spend as much time
checking on it, as I would have done if I had been at home.
--
Jim in NC

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Stefan" wrote

Serious virus warnings are *never* distributed by e-mails like the one you posted.
Actually, this e-mail itself can be considered a kind of virus, because it fills
mailboxes, wastes people's time and probably causes some friendly christmas mails to be
deleted unread.

Actually, I would not say never.

Where I work, there are a lot of computers networked together, and a lot of people
bringing things (files and software) from home and sticking into them, and that adds up
to a great chance of something undesirable getting into the system, and spreading if a
warning is not passed.

That is how I got this warning, and admittedly, I did not spend as much time checking on
it, as I would have done if I had been at home.

This may have been bogus but there is some valid history behind these things. Back in the
DOS days any way that you could get the victim's PC to execute just two lines of DOS
commands would have been fatal:

cd C:\
delete *.*

"John Mazor" wrote in message news:jwM8j.9980$rZ3.4647@trnddc07...

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Stefan" wrote

Serious virus warnings are *never* distributed by e-mails like the one you posted.
Actually, this e-mail itself can be considered a kind of virus, because it fills
mailboxes, wastes people's time and probably causes some friendly christmas mails to
be deleted unread.

Actually, I would not say never.

Where I work, there are a lot of computers networked together, and a lot of people
bringing things (files and software) from home and sticking into them, and that adds up
to a great chance of something undesirable getting into the system, and spreading if a
warning is not passed.

That is how I got this warning, and admittedly, I did not spend as much time checking
on it, as I would have done if I had been at home.

This may have been bogus but there is some valid history behind these things. Back in
the DOS days any way that you could get the victim's PC to execute just two lines of DOS
commands would have been fatal:

cd C:\
delete *.*

Now that I think about it, all it takes is

del c:\*.*

It's been a while since I had to know DOS commands.

The *******s that write virus programs deserve to be hung by their
fingernails, then flogged. There are many scores of people hit by viruses
every year, and many of them were trying to be safe. Sometimes significant
damage is done to their machines.


Nah!........don't be too easy on them. If we REALLY wanted to instill fear
in their hearts and cause a general panic and mayhem among them we should
threaten to (whisper) "waterboard" them. That should make them stop, or at
least make them consider stopping.

TP

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:21:12 -0500, "Martin X. Moleski, SJ"
wrote:

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:17:31 GMT, Larry Dighera wrote in :

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:29:29 +0100, Stefan
wrote:

Larry Dighera schrieb:

That will only affect those users who are ignorant enough to run
e-mail client program that automatically opens links embedded within
e-mail messages such as Microsoft Outlook Express.

Savvy users have nothing to fear.

Actually, it affects those users who are ignorant enough not to
recognize a hoax.

How can one be SURE it's a hoax if one is unable to see the contents
of the e-mail message without launching the links contained in it?

A savvy user either disables that feature or uses an
e-mail client that doesn't automatically launch links
contained in the e-mail.

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/merry-chr...rus-hoax.shtml

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/invitation.asp

Or they have their incoming e-mail checked for viruses.

Marty


Right. There is NO WAY to know for sure if the e-mail message is
malicious or not without looking at its contents.

My question was a rhetorical challenge to Stefan's assertion:

"Actually, it affects those users who are ignorant enough not to
recognize a hoax."

My point is, that it's not possible to recognize a hoax without
looking at the contents of the message.

On 2007-12-15 00:47:11 -0800, "John Mazor" said:


"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Stefan" wrote

Serious virus warnings are *never* distributed by e-mails like the one
you posted.
Actually, this e-mail itself can be considered a kind of virus, because
it fills
mailboxes, wastes people's time and probably causes some friendly
christmas mails to be
deleted unread.

Actually, I would not say never.

Where I work, there are a lot of computers networked together, and a
lot of people
bringing things (files and software) from home and sticking into them,
and that adds up
to a great chance of something undesirable getting into the system, and
spreading if a
warning is not passed.

That is how I got this warning, and admittedly, I did not spend as much
time checking on
it, as I would have done if I had been at home.

This may have been bogus but there is some valid history behind these
things. Back in the
DOS days any way that you could get the victim's PC to execute just two
lines of DOS
commands would have been fatal:

cd C:\
delete *.*

Or get the user to execute those two commands in order to get rid of a
supposed virus. Remember the emails that went out telling the user to
erase obscure system files which were claimed to be viruses?
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

On 2007-12-14 10:31:45 -0800, Larry Dighera said:

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:21:58 -0500, "Morgans"
wrote:

Microsoft Outlook Express

That will only affect those users who are ignorant enough to run
e-mail client program that automatically opens links embedded within
e-mail messages such as Microsoft Outlook Express.

Savvy users have nothing to fear.

Savvy users use Macs. :-)
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

On Sat, 15 Dec 2007 06:20:06 -0800, C J Campbell
wrote:

On 2007-12-14 10:31:45 -0800, Larry Dighera said:

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:21:58 -0500, "Morgans"
wrote:

Microsoft Outlook Express

That will only affect those users who are ignorant enough to run
e-mail client program that automatically opens links embedded within
e-mail messages such as Microsoft Outlook Express.

Savvy users have nothing to fear.

Savvy users use Macs. :-)

I realize this is meant to be humorous, but ...

Does the web browser distributed with OSX (or whatever is current)
default to launching links contained within e-mail messages without
requesting confirmation from the user before doing so?