> We keep getting email that begins as shown below. It's very long, >like >it is an encoded .wav file, as "Content-Type: audio/x-wav;" would >suggest. Is this another variant of the various >worms/viruses/whathaveyou that plague users of M$ software?
This is the Win32.Klez.H virus that's been going around for the last week or so. It takes advantage of a bug in Internet Explorer (which is used by Outlook and Outlook Express to render HTML mail), where IE will accidentally execute a file that's marked with certain unusual MIME types, regardless of the file's extension. This kind of virus is particularly troublesome, because it executes even when you open the message in the preview pane -- you don't even have to open the attachment; IE does that for you! Here's a pretty good write-up on the virus, with a link to Microsoft's patch for the bug (in case any of you use Windows machines): http://www3.ca.com/virus/virus.asp?ID=11779 Yet another reason for us to remain happy with Emailer, one of the few remaining mail apps that doesn't do anything stupid like open attachments, run scripts, and open random URLs behind your back. -cary P.S. On a related note, I was pleased to discover that Bare Bones' Mailsmith (which I'm demoing right now) also refuses to render HTML mail. It goes Emailer one better in this respect -- it shows a text extraction of the HTML if there's no plain text alternative available. (I still have yet to receive an HTML-only message that wasn't junk mail. Oh, wait -- I did receive one recently from my own company telling I need to change my NT password. Like they needed HTML for that! I could rant for a while on that and similar things at my company, but I'll spare you.) On the whole, I like Mailsmith, but it's tuned towards a preview pane -- it's difficult to use efficiently without one. The thing that drew me to it was the BBEdit-like text capabilities built in, and it really excels there. Where Emailer beats it, though, is in the sum of all the little things that it just does right. (And, of course, many of you will rule it out because it doesn't do AOL mail, and it has no auto-file log.) ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
