Re: Virus?

[flash flash@xxxxxxxx]

Patricia asked: > i have heard that cutting a pasting link to plain text
editor, such as xy, will purge it of any malware piggybackers. is true?

I would like to be able to answer "yes", that cutting and pasting to
plain text should eliminate any malware from a link. At any rate, you
should be able to see in Xy what other code has been pasted along with
the link, if the code can be represented in ASCII/ANSI format (and if
not, you'll see placeholder glyphs in Xy); whereas Outlook (or whatever)
may show only the 'obvious' portion of the link (that is, the portion
which is designed to appear harmless). However, hackers are endlessly
clever and may yet devise a method of hiding malicious code even from
pasting into a plain-text program such as Xy (not that they would think
of using Xy to test their code).

> but, of course, if the site itself has been hijacked or infected,
that does no good either. That is the current vogue method of infecting the
hapless. Don't go there, is the best prevention.