Mon, 26 Jan 1998 18:22:32 +0100
- Message No. 2057
From: Jorn Ronnow
Subject: Re: Achtung Virus
At 17:01 98-01-26 +0100, you wrote:
>|>> If you receive an email titled "JOIN THE CREW" DO NOT open it.
>|>> It will erase everything on your hard drive. Forward this letter out
>|>> to as many people as you can. This is a new, very malicious virus and
[snip]
ToM:
>Oh noooo not for the ... time the same unnecessary virus warning.
>This warning comes every year in a somehow other variation but it
>doesn't become more true in this case.
>If you get such a warning by a SysAdmin just shot him otherwise just
>ignore the warning. {;-)
ToM is right, of course, because:
An e-mail is a piece of text, not an executable program. Reading a piece of
text CAN NOT put viruses into your computer. Maybe into your brain, if it's
a propaganda text and you beleive it, but not into your computer. The only
way to get an virus via e-mail is to unpack an attached program and run it.
Running programs you get by e-mail (you often get them around X-mas for
some reason) is the internet equivalent of russian roulette.
Getting a virus by opening an e-mail is as impossible as building a true
offroad bike with a 19 inch front wheel.
Old folklore stories used to be about getting rat meet in your pizza or
getting your kidney stolen by surgeons in East Asia. The modern ones seem
to focus on computer viruses.
Keep sliding
-Jorn

dipper@normans.isd.uni-stuttgart.de