Not sure if I'm the Marc that Stephen was referring to, but...
Somewhere in the past week I read an email describing AOL's email policy.
Essentially, messages over a certain size are converted into attachments
automatically. I've forgotten the exact sizes and can't seem to locate the
email at the moment. If I stumble across it, I'll be sure to let people
know. To me, this policy is a bit ridiculous, but then I have some personal
biases against AOL for other reasons. So, it isn't Stephen's fault that it
came through as an attachment. It really is the fault of AOL and their
policy on handling large email messages...
At 11:31 AM 4/3/99 -0500, you wrote:
>she had an AOL address. So don't blame me, blame AOL. Given that
>messages from me originate from a UNIX (Linux, actually) source, I
>believe that my messages will always be safe, even if converted by AOL
>into an attachment (Marc, is that right?).
Hmmmm... in most cases I would say this is correct. I don't want to say it
could never happen, but I seriously doubt it would ever happen unless the
virus was somehow able to operate on multiple operating systems and
overcome a variety of other technical issues. Also, it would require an
actual attachment to be sent, not simply AOL converting the message into an
attachment. Again, I don't see this happening.
The important thing to remember is that AOL converts long email messages
into text attachments (at least this is my understanding of what happens).
You can not receive a virus from a text-only message, even if it is
converted to a text attachment. Text is text, and text doesn't get
executed. Network security people don't like to try and explain the
differences between types of attachments since most people don't understand
them, but some attachments are guaranteed safe by the type of file they
contain (ie text only). I can say this because I'm not one of those network
security people...
One option AOL users (and all users really) have is to try opening the
attachment in Notepad if you are really interested in seeing what it is. If
it is simply AOL converting the message into text, you should be able to
read it in Notepad without any problems. And, since Notepad won't execute
files or macros, you should be safe. Again, this is a 99% certainty and I
won't be held responsible for the other 1%.
Also, I again advise everyone to install anti-virus software and keep the
software up to date. Although this is not full-proof since new viruses
constantly appear in the wild with little notice (like Melissa did), it has
saved me on several occasions. I can't count the number of times students
have sent me infected MS-Word documents...
In other news... the new version of WordPerfect is suppose to support the
MS macro language... so it's possible that the new version of WordPerfect
will be vulnerable to some or all of the macro viruses that have plagued
Word over the past few years. Something to keep in mind and watch out for
if you upgrade to WordPerfect 9.
Hope this clears up at least a little of the AOL attachment issues...more
info provided to anyone who requests it...
- Marc
G. Marc Turner, MEd
Department of Psychology
Southwest Texas State University
San Marcos, TX 78666
phone: (512)245-2526
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
