Re: a show of hands, pls

[Wolfgang Bechstein wolfie@xxxxxxxx]

... wrote:

> Does anyone feel a compelling need for the virus
> warnings posted to this list?

I certainly don't (or rather, didn't), and I have always placed my sympathies
firmly in the "argh, another virus hoax" camp, but all this talk has finally
prompted me to conduct a little "test" (too simple to even be called that,
but I just wanted to make sure). I sent myself a message with an attached
WinWord document (file name .doc). The message appeared in my
Eudora Pro "in" box with a WinWord document icon in it. As you and I of
course have guessed, simply double-clicking on that icon launched WinWord
(because it's associated with the .doc extension in my Win95 environment) and
opened the document. Now if this document had been one with a macro virus, it
would have executed at that point. And it would have done so on millions of
computers using similar e-mail setups and having a .doc -> WinWord
association. (And of course an attached EXE file would have executed even
without the WinWord detour.) Now, is it not very easy to imagine a
less-than-fully-savvy computer user (none of which populate this list, of
course) double-clicking on an icon in a message, especially if it looks like
a text document, without first thinking of the possible consequences? Since
the threshold to executing a file has become so deceptively low, simply
repeating the mantra "mere e-mail can't hurt your system" might not be so
appropriate any more.

All of this is rather hypothetical of course, and the particular warning that
was reposted here indeed was closer to self-parody than to serious
information. But still...

AND NOW (drum roll), THE XY RELEVANCE:

As an extension of the above "test", I fiddled a bit with INT files and
XyWin, associating the former with the latter, thinking that then
double-clicking on XWSTART.INT might possibly launch the XPL commands in it
(thus rendering all four hundred and thirty seven XyWin users worldwide
vulnerable to macro virus type attacks by the one XyWin loonie that might
lurk out there), but as you (and not I in my stupidity) have guessed, it
didn't work. XyWin only *opened* the INT file, but it didn't *run* the
commands in it. So I am glad to report that for the nonce, we're safe (all
four hundred and thirty six of us).

Wolfgang Bechstein
wolfie@xxxxxxxx