[mso] Re: exe files
- From: "Greg Chapman" <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 21:11:01 -0500
Well, right and wrong. I'll agree that you are only the second part of
the problem.<g>
Yes, your children and mine, not actually having to work for a living,
are out on summer break from college, just aching to put some of that
cool stuff to use for the first time. And then MS started catching fury
from the security community who were barking loudly, "Do something!!!".
And they did.
Now you'll notice that these things can't run on their own anymore and
that they ship with their own address harvesting routines and mailing
engine. This is primarily because the MAPI engine has been largely
patched in SPs for Office 2000, XP jumps up and asks you about a piece
of code trying to cycle through the address book and the large number of
people who have moved off Office 97, at long freakin' last! Okay, so MS
stopped the auto execute capabilities of a virus in their email engine.
Good!
Next step? How do we protect ourselves from those who haven't educated
themselves to the point of knowing better yet? I mean, you couldn't
possibly want something so foolish as legislation to curtail you, would
you? Is there a need? Judging from the number of times I've had to empty
the PostFix mail queue at work in the last couple weeks, I'd say, yes,
there's still a problem to address. So the next thing I, as a user and
administrator, appeal to is the end user. I ask that you learn and
change your habits as if it *were* your responsibility. Microsoft, for
their part, puts blocking into their apps and lets people educate
themselves to the point where they learn how to disable certain
attachment blocks. It might be a good bet that if they've learned that
much then them may have learned a little about trusting email content.
If you're on LookOut 2000 with the Security Patch, the marketers got you
and you're SOL until you're either on an Exchange Server or you upgrade
to Office XP.
I don't mind giving time to education. I don't mind people getting upset
and I also don't mind losing a little time once in a while to someone's
mistake. I do mind the constant racket about "they should do this and
they shouldn't do that." Microsoft has reacted to its market and taken
outside guidance to try and find suitable solutions for these problems.
They'd like to maintain their position. Blathering on to everyone but
Microsoft about their decisions takes on an evangelical overtone rather
than a productive dialog from which decisions can be made. I'm glad to
not see too much of that in here.
So, after all that, what *do you* think the root cause is? I'm not so
sure we'll agree on that one as I definitely need to get a system to
send me mail once in a while, automagically. It's pretty important to
some other functions. And it's my opinion that the root cause is people
in general. If we need to get specific, I'll go so far as to point at
the faceless virus author and the na=EFve' end-user. Neither of those
remains in that state forever but there's always a new member of each of
those groups coming to the Internet every day and knowing what to do and
what not to do is a learning experience. People don't come to the 'net
fully educated.
Finally, the reason I decided to respond is because of a very
inflammatory comment in your message. I asked if you want legislation.
Legislation is usually the result of a group of people admitting that
they don't want to be responsible for this or that problem any longer.
Being no fan of legislation or lazy attitudes, I'd like to suggest that,
whether you believe it to be so or not, you really ought to act as if it
is your responsibility. No, it doesn't make you bad but it sure as hell
doesn't make me want to trust you enough to be polite. But since you
already are taking measures on your own, the only thing I have to
question is why you would make such a poorly considered statement unless
the full ramifications of it didn't strike you at the time?
And aren't you gonna welcome me back to the group?<g>
Greg Chapman
http://www.mousetrax.com=20
"Counting in binary is as easy as 01, 10, 11!
With thinking this clear, is coding really a good idea?"
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx=20
> [mailto:mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard Davisson
> Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 9:34 PM
> To: mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [mso] Re: exe files
>=20
>=20
> Don't you think that the root cause of all of this should be=20
> taken care =3D of? My computer is protected just as yours is,=20
> but I don't like someone =3D telling me how to use it. It is=20
> not my fault that there are bored =3D ******** out there with=20
> nothing to do but make virii. It just happens =3D to be my=20
> choice that I choose to protect what I have with AV software=20
> =3D and the like. It doesn't make me a bad or irresponsible=20
> person if I =3D choose not to. Yes, maybe irresponsible to=20
> myself, but certainly not =3D others. =3D20 Richard L. Davisson=20
> http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/WhatsonmyPalm
> We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered=3D20
> minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.
>
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