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RE: Computer Virus
- To: cygwin at cygwin dot com
- Subject: RE: Computer Virus
- From: Ken Thompson <ken dot thompson at gtri dot gatech dot edu>
- Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:08:23 -0500
At 10:49 AM 1/31/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>Off topic, I know. But what sort of protection are they giving their users
>with this line in the message:
>
> > >These types are not delivered to the final recipients. If you want
> > >to send one of these types, please encode them as ZIP or TAR files.
>
>Stephen Blythe
The real idea is to prevent naive users from executing/installing/whatever
potentially dangerous attachments by clicking on them blindly. A tar
archive will not normally execute some dangerous code if you double click
on it. IMHO, a better solution is to rename such attachments to something
that will not execute/install/whatever when clicked on and add a cautionary
message to the recipient. This lets the recipient decide the authenticity
of the file in question and act accordingly. This is what our mailer
software does.
Ken
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Ken Thompson GTRI/ELSYS/SEN
(404) 894-7089 (VOICE) (770)-223-6770 (PAGER)
(404) 894-7080 (FAX) ken.thompson@gtri.gatech.edu
The productivity of a software engineering process is inversely
proportional to the paperwork it generates and the meetings it requires. --
Ken Thompson
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