attachements

[Ron Nossaman]

Haven't we already done this 12 or 11 times? Don't you have to actively
(presumably consciously) RUN an attached file to launch a virus, trojan,
etc? Opening the email, automatically or otherwise, and intentionally
activating the attachment or it's associated program, are two vastly
different things, at least until the all knowing God of consumer computing
mindlessly automates us into utter helplessness at ALL points past the big
red switch. At this point we can still, if temporarily, decide for
ourselves whether or not to hand our frail and tender operating systems and
hard drive contents over to any given email attachment for dispensation as
it pleases. So be it. Along with this freedom (there's that word again) of
choice comes the personal responsibility to check the thing out before we
ingest it. That's the current situation. Wallow in it, and relish it while
it lasts. Attachments in mail readers can have trailing ".???" extensions
that your reader cleverly doesn't show you, so's not to bother you with
details and the unnecessary need for education. A harmless looking file
like "HARMLESS.JPG", as seen in your mail reader, can actually be named
"HARMLESS.JPG.EATTHEKNOWNUNIVERSE.EXE", and your mail reader just helpfully
truncated the name for you after the first ".JPG". The result is that you
can't be altogether sure what you're launching when you click on an
attachment listing in an email reader. Make a wish, have an adventure.
Alternatively, you might elect to try a different approach. If the
attachment seems to be claiming to be a graphic file (*.jpg, gif, tif, bmp,
tga, pcx, dxf - or whatever), shell out of your mail reader, fire up your
graphic editor or viewer, and load it directly. There's no operating system
program association involved when you attempt to load a graphic from a
graphic editor or viewer, like there is from a mail reader. The viewer
doesn't care what the operating system thinks (as is often obvious), and
will steadfastly attempt to load the file as a graphic, because you told it
to. If it happens that the file has lied to you and isn't what it claims to
be, the viewer simply won't load it and will tell you so. If it won't load,
that doesn't necessarily mean the file is a virus, or even remotely
dangerous in any respect (though it could be). There are hundreds of
peculiar, proprietary, mutated, and just plain aberrant graphic formats out
there and it's more likely that yesterday's release of yet another set of
new standards and compression algorithms has rendered your three day old
graphic editor forevermore useless and obsolete. In any case, the file's
harmless if you don't try to run it, and if you can't look it with an
intentionally run graphics viewer, it's a moot point. Just delete the thing
and get on with it.

If the attachment is a ".doc", or "xls" Word or Excel file (or anything
similar that may have imbedded macros), the virus scanner should catch it
on download, and/or you can disable the macros if you decide to load it.

If it's an obvious executable, consider that you are about to compute with
everyone the sender has ever computed with, and everyone that they have
ever computed with, and everyone... etc, etc. Then decide for yourself if
it's a good risk.

I'm pro choice, leave the attachments.

Ron N