Subject: Anti-virus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi everyone, There's a new meme virus going around. It claims that messages with the subject "PENPAL GREETINGS!" are viruses. This is patently false, as is the "Good Times" virus. E-mail messages are pure text. It is *PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE* to include automatically executed code in present-day email messages. There is *ABSOLUTELY* no way for reading an email message to transmit a virus. An *attachment* to an email can contain a virus, if it is an executable program, but even then, the virus can only be activated by running the program. The only other possible way for you to get a virus from an email attachment is if you are sent a file with a macro virus(I know there are macro viruses for Word, and theoretically such a thing could exist for some spreadsheet programs, but I have never actually heard of such a thing, and there may be barricades to such that I am unaware of). Basically, to be safe from computer viruses sent via email, don't execute programs or open Word documents received via email without scanning them for viruses first! *NEVER* execute a program received from someone you don't know, as it could easily be a trojan horse. > >>> of the data present. It is a self-replicating virus, and once the > >>> message is read, it will AUTOMATICALLY forward itself to > >>anyone who's e-mail address is present in YOUR mailbox! This is also impossible, in current day email programs. The real viruses are these so called "warning" message. They are not computer viruses, but meme, or idea, viruses. Replicated by humans who don't know better. All they do is waste bandwidth, cause fear, and cause people to delete email messages with a particular subject. Please carefully consider if the next 'virus warning' you get is even possible before passing it on. Please forward this message to your friends, family, etc. and protect them against these vicious wastes of time and generators of fear. Please clip everything outside the "PGP signed message" lines on this message, and please don't modify anything between those lines. Please snip the header on this message showing everyone it's been forwarded to. Copyright 1997 Kevin the Blue PGP public key at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~caswick/mypublickey.asc Please don't remove this copyright notice, thank you. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQBVAwUBM0vwjKwPVIK2cmYhAQHdYQH+MYWq21NjodRuGX6JISL/x+FWlVlvN/5t sb/VODuubj/0/+jDlz9X+2T8kdd9Dnp2asHXZM/ttmkRnp+RqA9/MQ== =IjMH -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----