On 08/05/09 10:40, Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado wrote:
>
> Saluton Tony :)
>
> On Fri 8 May 2009 09:18 +0200, Tony Mechelynck<[email protected]> dixit:
>> On 07/05/09 03:19, pansz wrote:
>>> Jürgen Krämer 写道:
>>>>> OK, so it's definitely spam. I don't know how it got through...
>>>>
>>>> I don't think so. I guess "redspider red" just replied to the wrong
>>>> mail or chose the wrong address from his address book.
>>>>
>>> Sure, anyone opens the attachment will see the pure-English text there,
>>> and it definitely is a mistake, not a spam.
>>
>> When I don't understand the plaintext, I may have a look at the email
>> source but otherwise I won't open any attachment. PDF and zip being
>> binary formats, they are sent in base64 content-transfer-encoding, which
>> means there's no way for me to tell if the attachment is malicious
>> witout opening it.
>
> Don't worry about it so much: you use Linux, and most viruses and
> malicious software is written for Windows. Under Linux you can use
> "file" to check if the binary is executable (and if it is, if it is an
> Elf executable or not) and if you don't have Wine installed, you can't
> even run the malicious attachment.
>
> If you are worried, you can always set up a "test" account without
> privileges (e.g. not belonging to any group) to check the attach, but it
> is more or less safe opening it after checking what it is with "file".
>
Hm, I suppose so; but I acquired my "prudent" ways to treat suspect mail
when I was still on Windows, and OTOH I've never really believed
arguments based on "On Linux, there are no viruses" which I regard as a
fallacy -- and I assume it takes only one bad apple (sorry Mac, I don't
mean you) to rot the whole system.
Actually, I suppose the most worrisome attachments are those in
Javascript but IIRC I disable that in the mail/news subsystem.
Using "file" would require a separate file, wouldn't it? With suspect
mail I don't take the trouble to save the attachment as a separate file,
it is kept in a mailbox file somewhere. And as I make a virtue of
laziness, if I don't clearly see the usefulness of opening a binary
attachment, I just leave it aside and proceed to the next unread message.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the
poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal
bread.
-- Anatole France
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