[pchelpers] Re: McAfee scans when sending / protocol error

Hi Scott

> EGlnl> Many security experts advise against scanning all incoming and
> EGlnl> especially outgoing email. If you have a clean system and an
> EGlnl> active antivirus program (i.e. with a function usually called
> EGlnl> "resident" or "background" or "virus shield" or something like
> EGlnl> that), that will prevent you from opening/activating any
> EGlnl> malicious code in an email or its attachment. I have many
> EGlnl> virus-infected emails in my Junk folder, but they don't hurt me
> EGlnl> or anyone else because they have not been activated, and they
> EGlnl> can't be; if i were stupid enough to try to open them, my
> EGlnl> antivirus program would block that.
> 
> Well, you probably want to scan at least the incoming, in order to
> avoid being a Typhoid Mary, if you're the type to forward lots of
> mail.

No, there is no need to scan incoming mail (and this can destroy one's 
entire Inbox) if one never forwards anything one hasn't first opened 
oneself, which i forgot to say in the previous message and which would 
seem to be something that basic prudence and common sense require.

Unfortunately, common sense has all but disappeared in the computer age 
even though, for example, the analogy of email to normal mail is often 
quite obvious and pertinent. No one in their right mind would think of 
forwarding a package to someone else without opening it first; if the 
original sender sent you something erroneously or the wrong thing, you 
would be eternally embarrassed and responsible for having sent this on 
to someone else!



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