Hi. Anti-virus software is available to run on the Message Transfer Agent.
This is what has been done in some commercial companies. The A-V sw processes each piece of e-mail entering the MTA -- just like A-V sw does on your PC / workstation. There is a cost in terms of message processing delay times and license costs and systems administration. Hope this helps . . . Mark R. Jones Chief Information Officer: SEA-IS Executive Vice President: SEA P.O. Box 1457; Lynnwood, WA 98046 Direct Line: 425-413-6000 Mobile Line: 206-696-7000 Message Line: 504-304-2460 e-Mail: mark.r.jo...@seabase.com -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu]On Behalf Of Artur F. Silva Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 2:30 AM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Re: Viruses At 20:15 06-12-2001, Winston Kinch wrote: Is there no way for the listserv manager/software to automatically check messages for viruses and filter out buggy ones? I am no longer a specialist, but once I was (as an IBM SE...) and one gets a feeling for these things... I think it is not easy for the listserve software to do that; what can be done at the listserv SW level is to supress the sending of ALL attachments. On the other level the list can change to being moderated, and someone would have to check every message - but that has other problems. Internet service providers, on the other level, can do that ckeck if they are forced to - but that has also other problems as it slows the response time. So the best solution is: everyone must have an anti-virus an keep it updated. "Whatever happens is the only thing that could have" shall NOT be applied here ;-) At 20:20 06-12-2001, Esther . wrote: I have noticed that the current virus seems to come from a legitimate email address with a _ at the beginning (an underscore) so that if you were to try to reply to it, you can't without removing the underscore from the beginning of the email. Perhaps the moderator or the listserv could look for those and eliminate them automatically? Maybe I'm asking too much but it's worth noting for all of us who look at our email - delete without opening ANY of it when the "from" address has the underscore at the beginning. I don't think there is a clear relation between the initial underscore and the fact of having the computer infected and hence sending (unwillingly) messages with virus. I think that people that use the underscore (or some blank caracters in the beginning) are only trying to protect themselves from spam and other automatic replies. Regards Artur
