A Favor

[Paul Christian]

Frisk,

Thanks for this from an authoratative source.

I too delete anything without a subject line, mostly because it is
invariably spam and I  am sufficiently paranoid never to accept exe, com,
doc, dot files which are deleted at the server but can you shed any light
on the supposed HTML virus (non-malignant as yet) that can infect via
Internet Explorer with the security options turned off.  If true this
presents a nasty and far more likely risk to us all.



At 15:15 05/12/98 +0000, you wrote:
>> Recently a couple of messages have come in without a subject.  Since
this is a
>> favorite way by some to spread virusus
>
>Eh, keep in mind that under any sensibly configured mail reader, a message
>containing a virus will not infect your system, unless you specifically
>open/execute the attachment - just reading the text part of the mail will
>*normally* not present any risk, and this applies regardless of whether the
>message has a subject line.  (There are sertain loopholes in Outlook and
>cc:Mail that a virus can use to automatically get itself executed under
>certain conditions, but a discussion of that is a bit outside the subjects
>of this mailing list).
>
>On the other hand, not including a subject line is considered rather impolite
>by some people, so I second the suggestion that people try to use a
>descriptive subject line.
>
>-frisk
>