Virus Alert!

Hey Jim,

No sweat. I would rather be safe than sorry---so thanks for the heads up.

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

Paul in OK.


Interesting. I didn't see that warning earlier. I guess the joke is on
me.

Sorry, all.
--
Jim in NC

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

Earthlink trashes all that stuff before it gets to the PoP server.

"Martin X. Moleski, SJ" wrote

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

True. Done, in my case. The problem with a real virus that comes from
people you know, is that you would be likely to open the E-mail and
attachments, because you believe they came from a friend, and that they are
safe. That makes this type of virus very dangerous, and very likely to
compromise the receiver's system.

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

Done, in my case, also.

There is also the possibility that the virus is too new to be detected by
anti virus programs.

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.

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.
--
Jim in NC

"Paul Riley" wrote in message
et...
Hey Jim,

No sweat. I would rather be safe than sorry---so thanks for the heads up.

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

Paul in OK.

And there we were... counting on enough coal in our stockings to stay warm
all winter and you had to ruin the comcept. (

Peter

BTW, on a mildly serious note, I trust links and attachments from some of
the people I know; but there are some very notable exceptions!

Morgans schrieb:

There is also the possibility that the virus is too new to be detected by
anti virus programs.

The anti virus program people are pretty quick. If you have installed a
serious anti virus program and have subsribed for authomatic updates,
then you are pretty safe.

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.

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.

"Morgans" kinda/sorta wrote:

The *******s that write hoax emails deserve to be hung by their
fingernails, then flogged. There are many scores of people hit by
hoaxes every year, and many of them were trying to be safe. Sometimes
significant damage is done to their machines, because they followed
information contained within.

I guess I can live with that...

"Peter Dohm" wrote

And there we were... counting on enough coal in our stockings to stay warm
all winter and you had to ruin the comcept. (

Ahhh, that's O.K.

I've heard that **** burns well, too!
--
Jim in NC

Peter Dohm wrote:

"Paul Riley" wrote in message
et...

Hey Jim,

No sweat. I would rather be safe than sorry---so thanks for the heads up.

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

Paul in OK.


And there we were... counting on enough coal in our stockings to stay warm
all winter and you had to ruin the comcept. (

Peter

BTW, on a mildly serious note, I trust links and attachments from some of
the people I know; but there are some very notable exceptions!





Ok Peter, you either will - or you won't.

But Merry Xmas anyway!


http://www.home.earthlink.net/~cavelamb/proof.htm#xmas


Richard

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


--
Big-8 newsgroups: humanities.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, talk.*
See http://www.big-8.org for info on how to add or remove newsgroups.

"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...