SB: Virus/Worm safeguards (OT)

["Robert W. Tom" <ArchiLogic@yahoo.ca>]

A fellow in Oz was complaining that he had downloaded a 138kb 
message only to find that it was garbage (not to mention the possibility 
that he risked a virus infection.)

I don't know what people here use as browsers and mail programs 
but with Opera ("the fastest browser on earth" is their claim. Not 
MicroSoft is their attraction to me) browser's mail program (which 
facilitates POP mail) and Hotmail, the sizes of messages are  
listed adjacent to each message.

I suspect that most people are already aware of the following  but it 
probably bears repeating:

No matter how overly verbose a person is, a text message (even from 
yakketysorts like Duck Foo'd or the DEsert D'Oh!-nut) to the List 
seldom exceeds 30 kb in size. 

Anything over that size should be suspect  and it would be 
wise to delete it without opening it. Hopefully people know better 
than to send messages larger than 30 kb anyway, since it presents an 
undue hardship to those in rural areas with slow connections.

For worms, I've been told that if one makes an entry in one's address 
book as  "!0001" for the name and "Worm Alert" as the edress, then 
"!0001 will be the first entry in one's edress book and as such, will be 
the first target of a worm attack. The worm will then try to send itself 
to the edress "Worm Alert" which of course is an invalid edress and 
you will receive an error message notifying you that the mail to "Worm 
Alert" bounced, thereby alerting you to the fact that you have been 
wormed and should take appropriate action.

Of course, the above is not a substitute for keeping your virus 
software up to date but they are useful supplements to one's 
virus/worm arsenal. 

Just in case anyone is still wondering, "info@harvesthomes.ca" is a 
genuine edress which is used by a real person ( Ben (can't think of his 
last name at the moment but it will come to me... the bales-on-edge 
fellow)) and "7th Generation" is a group built around a  woman-with-
an-inheritance with which he has an occasional association for 
workshops & tours.

I suspect that one or both of them inadvertantly infected each other 
through their edress books and that's how their virus-infected 
messages got onto the List ? (If the 138 kb file attachments were in 
fact, virus programs.)

--- * ---
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada
<ArchiLogic@CHAFFyahoo.ca>
(winnow the "chaff" spamguard from my edress in your reply)

Please visit http://www.theHungerSite.com daily





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