On 9 Mar 2007, at 10:45, BARRY HOLLAND wrote: > Exactly, whilst I'm sure that Andy had the best of intentions > initially, he lost me when he suggested that I 'don't care' about > fellow users. It's a bit like the PC brigade banning conkers from > school playgrounds---over the top.
Well, that's a first - me being accused of being politically correct! > I know I caught a cold when I challenged someone on this list to > create an e-mail purportedly from me---& he successfully did. But > to imagine the world would be brought to its knees by running an > eclipse animation, especially [purportedly, admittedly] from a > regular poster such as yourself is paranoia--isn't it? When it comes to downloads that you don't trust absolutely, paranoia is good... for you and the other users who might be affected by your actions. It may look like an eclipse animation to you and others, but you can't possibly know what else it may be doing. A .exe is the most dangerous thing of all (for a Windows user). > Barry > Nb shakeshisheaddisappointedly Sorry, Barry, but this is the way of the world. I wish it wasn't so either. I've been around on the Internet long enough (20 years) to remember a time when it was possible to download anything that was posted and trust it implicitly. Sadly those days have gone and we've all learnt our lessons. It's so easy to distribute innocent-looking software with malicious intent, and to dupe other people into passing it on - you trust David as a member of this list, and so do I, but initially at least none of us apart from David knew where he got it from or had any reason to trust that source. David has explained its provenance and indicated that he tested it, which is very responsible of him because it's easy just to pass these things on without a further thought, but I still don't regard that as sufficient. This is just a sign of the times in which we live I'm afraid. -- Andy Greener n.b. Whisper Pangbourne, UK http://www.nb-whisper.com "Standards are an endurance sport."
