A big mail list I subscribe to has been hit by the (benign) KAK virus recently.
This has been absolutely wonderful from my position in the food chain, as a
rule to only send plain text mail will now be strictly enforced. Reading the
250kB digests was getting just too tiring, due to wading past all the HTML
junk from the majority of posters.
I've found it hard to convince otherwise intelligent HTML emailers of the error
in their ways, or even to find the "switch" for plain text.
But the following "kills two birds with one stone" and should convince 'em it's
in THEIR OWN INTEREST to send/receive plain text, as well as tell 'em how
to set up their M$ mail client.
<quote>
Sincerest condolences if you were infected with the Wscript.KakWorm virus.
In common with some other members of Insider-Equity I opened Outlook Express
this morning to find Norton AntiVirus blaring a vivid red warning at me and
displaying a new and unpleasant word for my lexicon...
Email viruses like our friend the KakWorm are transmitted in HTML mail, and
others in attachments. Often, as with the KakWorm's monthly greeting, viral
'payloads' are benign but they cause tremendous inconvenience as we have
seen - and our infection this time raises the possibility of more serious
viruses in future.
This is why point three of the Insider terms and conditions
http://www.iii.co.uk/insider/reg-users/terms.htm ) requests that members
send messages in plain text. In most email clients this is easy - just go to
your address book entry for each Insider list and click 'send E-mail using
plain text only' (on the 'name' tab of the 'properties' dialog in Outlook
Express).
By enforcing plain-text messages we can achieve a much higher degree of
security for Insiders while alleviating another problem - the size of HTML
messages and attachments. So, on Wednesday at 2.00pm, in the continuing
drive to make Insider-Equity run as smoothly as possible, we will start
rejecting messages that are not in plain text. You will need to check your
mail client settings to make sure messages you post get through.
We do not virus-check mails sent to the Insider groups because it would
delay delivery significantly, add complexity to the system, and would not
guarantee that messages are virus-free. As point six of the Insider terms
and conditions states -- the lists are unmoderated and users are responsible
for their own postings.
Thanks to those who so quickly raised our awareness to the problem and
posted fixes - just to reiterate their advice, you can find out more about
the virus and what to do if you think you have been infected at:
http://vil.mcafee.com/vil/wsh10509.asp
and
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/wscript.kakworm.html
</quote>
