From: Michael G Schwern Date: 01:49 on 27 Jan 2004 Subject: Email viruses This one's a cheap shot, but I don't care. Once upon a time, viruses were something other people had to deal with. Some Windows' user's hard drive gets reformatted, "oh, hard luck pal" as you snicker quietly and turn back to your Mac and/or Unix machine. Now, through the wonder of executable email attachments, Visual Basic and the incredible gullibility of the bottom 10% of the Internet, any keyboard pounder can slop together an email virus with just enough social engineering to make someone drool in the vicinity of the left mouse button. "*GASP*! The FBI's Department of Illegal Internet Downloads has caught me!" After a few years of this sort of thing, you'd think people would learn. [1] Then it breeds like a rabbit hutch on trial size Viagra sending itself indiscriminately to any address it finds while ransacking the poor fool's computer. Now its MY problem because this infinite queue of email clicking monkeys managed to find activestate.com and installed Perl documentation with my email address in it. With this last outbreak I'm getting hundreds a day. And even if I filter them out, I still need to download and scan the bloody things at 30K a piece. And then, because some anti-virus companies are so astoundingly gullible that they trust the From line on an email, the bounce messages add to the fun. Must. Purge. Internet. [1] They don't. While home over Christmas I helped my neighbor set up their new WAP. They had so much crap installed on their machine that it would simply accumulate random popup ads if they left it on doing nothing to the point where rebooting it was faster than trying to get rid of them all. IE was encrusted with ads and scam search tabs. This was all sort of accepted as the price of using a computer.
From: Matt McLeod Date: 01:57 on 27 Jan 2004 Subject: Re: Email viruses Michael G Schwern wrote: > Now its MY problem because this infinite queue of email clicking monkeys > managed to find activestate.com and installed Perl documentation with > my email address in it. And then there's what it's doing to resource requirements for mail servers. I work for a fairly large University, and we're having some trouble keeping up with the growth in traffic created by all this crap. It used to be that you'd expect mail you sent (at least internally) to arrive fairly quickly, now you're just happy if it shows up on the same day it was sent. In addition to the traffic, there's the virus scanning. Even when you just drop Windows executables on the floor (which we do as of the latest outbreak -- finally the academics in charge of policy broke) there's still lots of stuff to scan, adding load to the thing and slowing things down. Mail clients that can execute random code? What a *wonderful* idea that was! And we'll never get rid of them now... Matt
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 02:11 on 27 Jan 2004 Subject: Re: Email viruses > Mail clients that can execute random code? What a *wonderful* > idea that was! And we'll never get rid of them now... We got rid of them for (good god, has it been) getting on for nearly ten years. But then we got Borged and the Borg demanded we use Internet Exploiter.
From: Matt McLeod Date: 02:20 on 27 Jan 2004 Subject: Re: Email viruses > > Mail clients that can execute random code? What a *wonderful* > > idea that was! And we'll never get rid of them now... > > We got rid of them for (good god, has it been) getting on for nearly > ten years. But then we got Borged and the Borg demanded we use Internet > Exploiter. I mean "we" in the larger sense. Even if Microsoft stopped selling them, there's such a huge installed base now that they have to be considered pretty much impossible to get rid of completely. Over here the official Windows MUA is Eudora. But there are still people -- mainly senior academics -- who insist on using Outlook.
From: sungo Date: 02:23 on 27 Jan 2004 Subject: Re: Email viruses On (01/27 13:20), Matt McLeod wrote: > Over here the official Windows MUA is Eudora. But there are still > people -- mainly senior academics -- who insist on using Outlook. part of the problem is one of perceived features. i've worked with lots of IT folks who DEMANDED outlook because of the integrated groupware. same goes for exchange server. sure, i can build them the same thing out of open source stuff but it'll require them to open more than one app and probably won't be as "pretty". or so they say. the perceived cost/benefit here just hasn't gotten bad enough for those old farts to give it up. -- Matt Cashner http://eekeek.org eek at eekeek dot org
From: Matt McLeod Date: 02:35 on 27 Jan 2004 Subject: Re: Email viruses sungo wrote: > On (01/27 13:20), Matt McLeod wrote: > > > Over here the official Windows MUA is Eudora. But there are still > > people -- mainly senior academics -- who insist on using Outlook. > > part of the problem is one of perceived features. i've worked with lots > of IT folks who DEMANDED outlook because of the integrated groupware. > same goes for exchange server. Calendaring here is done with Corporate Time. We have no Exchange server, and plan to keep it that way. So I'm not sure what these people are getting by using Outlook. I can only assume that they've used Outlook elsewhere and thus insist on continuing to use it, even if all it can do is be an MUA. (CT is a whole 'nother hate-fest. I shall rant at length once I'm done with this damned Tru64 DRP bolllocks -- I am our CT-weenie.) Matt
From: sungo Date: 02:35 on 27 Jan 2004 Subject: Re: Email viruses On (01/27 13:35), Matt McLeod wrote: > Calendaring here is done with Corporate Time. We have no Exchange > server, and plan to keep it that way. So I'm not sure what these > people are getting by using Outlook. I can only assume that they've > used Outlook elsewhere and thus insist on continuing to use it, > even if all it can do is be an MUA. from what i've seen, that is in fact the reason. they've used outlook and like the blind little sheep they are, they think that nothing can POSSIBLY be better than OUTLOOK... > (CT is a whole 'nother hate-fest. I shall rant at length once I'm > done with this damned Tru64 DRP bolllocks -- I am our CT-weenie.) man, CT is a fucking noble prize worthy achievement compared to the HORRORS of netscape calendar. (i work for ... well a place that has a LOT vested in netscape :) i acutally use corporate time as an interface to it when i have to use it at all... which brings up another question. is there groupware out there that doesnt make the baby jesus cry? -- Matt Cashner http://eekeek.org eek at eekeek dot org
From: Matt McLeod Date: 02:59 on 27 Jan 2004 Subject: Re: Email viruses sungo wrote: > On (01/27 13:35), Matt McLeod wrote: > > (CT is a whole 'nother hate-fest. I shall rant at length once I'm > > done with this damned Tru64 DRP bolllocks -- I am our CT-weenie.) > > man, CT is a fucking noble prize worthy achievement compared to the > HORRORS of netscape calendar. (i work for ... well a place that has a > LOT vested in netscape :) i acutally use corporate time as an interface > to it when i have to use it at all... We upgraded from Netscape Calendar back when that was CT rebadged. I get to upgrade to the most recent CT on new hardware once this current fun is over. This means sucking data out of multiple Netscape LDAP servers (these pre-date the Sun takeover) and moving it to OpenLDAP at the same time, and it does *not* like like it will be an enjoyable experience. This is so far from being a documented and supported scenario that I am rapidly losing my sense of humour. Add in that the last round of trouble we had with CT -- the service becoming unaccountably unresponsive -- was the result of our taking the advice of the CT support group, and, well, I don't have much confidence in the product. That it sucks less than Exchange is not saying much. > which brings up another question. is there groupware out there that > doesnt make the baby jesus cry? OpenMail, or whatever Samsung has called it now? Though they're trying to turn it into a UM system, and it was already pretty damned byzantine to start with, so I wouldn't hold out much hope... Even dtcm does horrible things. Have I mentioned lately that I could make it consistently trash the SCSI bus on a Sun E4k? Apple's iCal kinda-sorta has the beginnings of something which might not suck too badly. It does at least conform to the iCal standard (not related) rather than just making its own shit up. And it "publishes" calendars using DAV. Matt
From: sungo Date: 03:00 on 27 Jan 2004 Subject: Re: Email viruses On (01/27 13:59), Matt McLeod wrote: > Apple's iCal kinda-sorta has the beginnings of something which might > not suck too badly. It does at least conform to the iCal standard > (not related) rather than just making its own shit up. And it > "publishes" calendars using DAV. suggesting a mac only solution is a lot like suggesting a testicle free work place for most folks i've worked with. ical may have promise but until it has a web client or some other os independent interface, there's no way to suggest it. -- Matt Cashner http://eekeek.org eek at eekeek dot org
From: Gavin Estey Date: 02:36 on 27 Jan 2004 Subject: Re: Email viruses On Jan 26, 2004, at 9:20 PM, Matt McLeod wrote: > > I mean "we" in the larger sense. Even if Microsoft stopped selling > them, there's such a huge installed base now that they have to be > considered pretty much impossible to get rid of completely. > The solution is simple, somebody just needs to write a virus that eliminates that installed base. Gavin.
From: Simon Batistoni
Date: 13:20 on 27 Jan 2004
Subject: Re: Email viruses
On 26/01/04 21:36 -0500, Gavin Estey wrote:
>
> The solution is simple, somebody just needs to write a virus that
> eliminates that installed base.
JWZ:
Makali wrote:
Whenever a programmer thinks, "Hey, skins, what a cool idea",
their computer's speakers should create some sort of cock-shaped
soundwave and plunge it repeatedly through their skulls.
I am fully in support of this proposed audio-cock technology.
(http://www.jwz.org/doc/linuxvideo.html)
bash.org:
<[SA]HatfulOfHollow> i'm going to become rich and famous after i
invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the
internet
(http://bash.org/?4281)
Amen, brothers...
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