[pchelpers] Preview pane and the dangerous world of Microsoft and dishonest businesspeople
- From: "Ekhart GEORGI (last name last)" <Ekhart.GEORGI@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pchelpers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2004 11:14:25 +0300
Hi Scott and everybody else
Should be working like crazy to get done by the deadline (which has
luckily been postponed!), but fooling around with the puter and reading
PCHelpers is so much fun. And then once in a while i can't resist answering:
> G> There are some viruses that can infect your computer just by viewing the
> G> infected email in the preview pane. For that reason I don't use the preview
> G> pane at all.
Actually, that doesn't help, at least if you're talking about a
Microsoft preview pane (any sane program like Thunderbird has a safe
preview pane). See http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/vir100501.html:
Even with the automatic preview turned off, even if you never view
messages in the preview pane, Outlook Express automatically opens the
first message that arrives in an empty Inbox.
Listen to this again: Outlook Express automatically opens the first
message that arrives in an empty Inbox.
If that brat in Bratislava creates a script virus that wipes out
your files and your weak-brained sister-in-law passes it on to you right
after you've cleaned out your Inbox, guess what? You can say goodbye to
your files.
It does not matter how carefully you've set up Outlook Express.
Don't even think about how dutifully you've made sure that you don't
open messages that seem suspicious. Outlook Express will handle that for
you.
In the many decades before the American Revolution, a lot of people
died or were maimed because their weapons exploded in their faces. These
exploding weapons were called blunderbusses. Obviously they were
dangerous. It did not matter whether they were powerful or whether they
had a nice heft and feel. They were dangerous. Horribly dangerous.
The people who fired them were horribly mistaken. They thought the
danger of having their faces blown off was misstated. They thought bad
things wouldn't happen to good people.
Has anything changed since then? Have the millions of Windows users
who like the look and feel of Outlook Express lost their minds? Or are
they simply complacent?
What about the millions of others who have never realized that
Outlook Express is just one of many possible e-mail programs? Are they
like the hapless hunters and mountaineers who shouldered blunderbusses?
I don't have answers. I have suggestions.
(End of quote)
The author continues with some suggestions (which you can find at the
address quoted above) that are very good despite being a few years old,
but i'd like to add a few:
Linux, BSD (www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2216,00.asp), Thunderbird,
Firefox, and lots more on http://microsoft.toddverbeek.com
> My understanding (which could be wrong) is that if you have all of the
> security updates, you won't have that problem.
With the inevitable "window of opportunity" between the appearance of a
new virus and the release of an update for Windows and the normal
antivirus programs (see below for the apparently only AV that is
intelligent and doesn't need constant updates), a serious cracker (or an
*intelligent* terrorist -- so far we've only seen wild fanatics) could
smash most systems running Microsoft products at once.
It's no coincidence that these continue to include US government
computers according to the pee-brained logic (i don't think i misspelled
that) of Bush's administration that is more interested in making money
and expanding power than providing real security and real, honest
employment to normal citizens.
It's no coincidence that the Department of Homeland Security continues
to recommend Microsoft products when many other countries are avoiding
or even forbidding MS products (see www.livingwithoutmicrosoft.org). In
fact, the Bush administration's politics are not really politics;
they're essentially a very big business venture that is almost exactly
like Microsoft's business approach: using gimmicks and fancy advertising
to sell shoddy products a bit cheaper than the competition, hide and
deny the hidden costs, smother the competition, and then rip off the
customers.
It's quite amazing and no coincidence how much the average Windows and
Word user resembles the average US citizen that pays through the nose
for politics that do the opposite of what the ads and public speeches
say. Instead of peace and jobs for all, they literally create thousands
of enemies and lots of lucrative security and construction deals and tax
cuts for the US upper class that is secretly laughing at the poor
average voter.
Bush and his cronies knew a terrorist attack was coming, and they didn't
want to prevent it. They didn't do anything to make the inefficient US
intelligence commmunity stop bickering and hiding info from each other.
They didn't know that it would kill that many people, but then neither
did the terrorists.
(Nor the idiots who build skyscrapers without remembering that planes
have fuel tanks -- when i stood on the WTC in 1985, i said that i'm 100%
sure it can't survive a full hit by a large civilian plane, but since
i'm just a normal citizen without deep engineering insights, i
unfortunately didn't make a fool of myself and write a letter to the
editor of the NYT -- and they wouldn't have printed it anyhow. By the
way, it's common knowledge that nuclear power plants can't survey a
direct hit by a military plane, which is apparently why US military
pilots in Germany amused (amuse?) themselves for years in purposely
flying low and directly over e.g. Biblis, the biggest nuclear power
plant in Europe.)
> Considering that there's more junk that can infect via fully-opened
> messages than via preview pane,
Are you sure about that?
Haven't tried this www.stiller.com/intmast.htm out yet, but it seems to
be the well-concealed Linux or Mac (it's not free) of the antivirus
programs, almost all of which are apparently more interested in scaring
people and making them pay regularly for protection they could pay for
once and forget.
I heard about it here, where there are a lot of other interesting things
about viruses (there is no such plural as virii, not even in Latin) and
the many myths surrounding them:
http://vmyths.com/rant.cfm?id=242&page=4
Terrorists would rule the skies if airport security worked like today's
antivirus security. "Well, let's see. You dress like Osama bin Laden.
You spout anti-American rhetoric like Osama bin Laden. You threatened to
blow up an aircraft, and I noticed a powerful bomb in your carry-on
luggage. However, your passport doesn't say Osama bin Laden. Have a nice
flight! Don't forget your bag."
See this too to prevent destroying all your mail with the many badly
designed antivirus programs that unnecessarily scan your email (they
should only prevent the virus from executing!):
email virus scanning unnecessary and dangerous
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=78989&highlight=
Ekhart
Regards, John Durham (list moderator) <http://modecideas.com/contact.html?sig>
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