[H-GEN] Re: Linux Networking - Some Basic Questions

[Andrae Muys]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and ]
[ Unix-related topics.  Please observe the list's charter.          ]

On Sat, 26 Feb 2000, Mike Andrew wrote:
 
> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and ]
> [ Unix-related topics.  Please observe the list's charter.          ]
> 
> From: Darrin Mison <staeci at yahoo.com>
> 
> please note, as policy, i do not, will not, and refuse to open attachments.
> I would not be alone in this, most are tired of viruses and we no longer
> bother to even see if it's a harmless text file. My kde kmail and netscape
> under linux are set to /dev/null any attachments. My isp blocks jpg rubbish
> for similar reasons.

There is only one known virus affecting linux machines, this is a purely
accademic virus that even comes with an uninstall option!  There are no
known email virii affecting linux email programs, (or image viewers ;),
and the discovery of one would a) be signifigant news b) (correctly)
treated as a serious bug in the email application.  As such blocking
attachments under linux is not justifiable.  More specifically in this
case, the attachment was Application/PGP-SIGNATURE, displayed as opaque by
Pine, is (it is supposed to be random afterall) non-executable, and is an
important authentication application.

In summary, your reaction is unjustifiable given the risk, and actually
exposes you to additional risks should you ever find you need to
authenticate the source of a specific email.

Andrae Muys

P.S. Pine 4.21 reported the signature as 
 [ Part 2, Application/PGP-SIGNATURE  248bytes. ]
 [ Cannot display this part. Press "V" then "S" to save in a file. ]

--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Andrae Muys <andrae at humbug.org.au> "Never ascribe to malice that which is
Senior IT Officer                   adequately explained by incompetence."
The Centre for Magnetic Resonance                   -Napoleon Bonaparte
The University of Queensland





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