virus warnings

[Peter Evans peterev@xxxxxxxx]

Michael Edwards:

> I would personally rather have a thousand virus
> warnings than a single real virus though

It's not (yet) a question of a thousand virus warnings. It might be a
question of dozens of virus warnings. The more messages there are warning
about "viruses" (real or imagined), and the longer they are, the less
likely it is that people will pay attention to those that are useful.

> I've often found virus warnings on mailing lists useful

I haven't. I have found a few useful, and I don't want them prohibited
tout court. But many are about straightforward hoaxes (see
http://kumite.com/myths/ ), and many of the remainder would be made
redundant by giving the simple advice: "Treat any unsolicited file with
great care, even if it comes from a friend."

  (Thus I've never heard of any SLEAZYVIDEO virus --
  I've just thought of it right now -- and consider
  Wolfgang "Great Helmsman" Bechstein a friend; but
  if I received a message from him reading "Hey dude,
  u gotta see these hornny sluts now!!", I would not
  click the attached SLEAZYVIDEO.AVI.vbs.)

We've now reduced the number of warnings by 90% or so. For the remainder,
a short message with an authoritative URL would usually suffice.
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Peter Evans