Re: (yet again) [Fwd: Virus Alert]
Rick Macdonald wrote: On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, Christopher R. Hertel wrote: : Not true. You can't get a virus from reading an email message. Actually, that depends upon your E'mail system. [...] ...but that's a hole in Microsoft mail. Obviously, this kind of thing could not be done via the standard Unix mail system (unless you had a MIME-aware mail reader that was willing to run Java code for you... Oooops!) Actually... I don't use emacs for email, but apparently its mail reader uses the emacs enable-local-variables feature. And, apparently, some mischief can be done by this mechanism. [...] Perhaps someone on the list is more familiar with this issue and emacs mail. See Linux Journal #24 (April 1996) for an interesting article on this and related topics. Nutshell synopsis: be *very* careful with your MIME mail setup! -- Bill Roman ([EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED]) running linux
Re: (yet again) [Fwd: Virus Alert]
On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, Christopher R. Hertel wrote: : Not true. You can't get a virus from reading an email message. Actually, that depends upon your E'mail system. Microsoft mail allows you to send macros along with messages. These macros are automatically run when the message is read. I have first-hand experience with a virus (actually, a destructive macro) that was transmitted this way. ...but that's a hole in Microsoft mail. Obviously, this kind of thing could not be done via the standard Unix mail system (unless you had a MIME-aware mail reader that was willing to run Java code for you... Oooops!) Actually... I don't use emacs for email, but apparently its mail reader uses the emacs enable-local-variables feature. And, apparently, some mischief can be done by this mechanism. This feature is disabled with (setq enable-local-variables nil) or (setq enable-local-variables 1) The later causes it to query you if local variables exist. Perhaps someone on the list is more familiar with this issue and emacs mail. ...RickM...
Re: (yet again) [Fwd: Virus Alert]
On Aug 16, 4:44pm, Robbie Honerkamp wrote: Subject: Re: [Fwd: Virus Alert] : : Not true. You can't get a virus from reading an email message. : -- End of excerpt from Robbie Honerkamp Actually, that depends upon your E'mail system. Microsoft mail allows you to send macros along with messages. These macros are automatically run when the message is read. I have first-hand experience with a virus (actually, a destructive macro) that was transmitted this way. ...but that's a hole in Microsoft mail. Obviously, this kind of thing could not be done via the standard Unix mail system (unless you had a MIME-aware mail reader that was willing to run Java code for you... Oooops!) Chris -)- -- Christopher R. Hertel -)- University of Minnesota [EMAIL PROTECTED] Networking and Telecommunications Services
