An interesting item from the day’s news:
By “careful not to fully open messages,” are the authors referring to the practice of having one’s Outlook e-mail display a preview of the message?
If so, then the message is actually open.
The story said that is the case.
from the story:
A friend is someone who likes you even though you’re as ugly as a hat full of assholes.
Zettecity
Will it do the same with Netscape’s Email reader?
Umm…is the link supposed to go to a story about septuplets?
Anyway, to be infected by a virus you need to run something. this would normally be impossible with email but if the email reader allows HTML code to be executed it becomes possible. My suggestion is to find out how to turn off HTML code in your mail reader and only turn it back on when you are reading something that you know is clean.
This is result of this virus is basically the same as Melissa, but to activate it all you must do is open the message(Outlook or Outlook Express), or in the case of Outlook Express, just preview the message.
copied from ZDNet.com:
“BubbleBoy requires Internet Explorer 5.0 with Windows Scripting Host installed, which is standard on Windows 98 and Windows 2000. It doesn’t run on Windows NT or on the default settings of Windows 95. Setting IE 5.0 to its maximum security setting would prevent it from doing anything.”
Well, here’s a link from my newspaper, which coincidentially answers my previous question.
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/business/A46274-1999Nov10.html
It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.
—Mark Twain
This is an email I got this morning.I’m posting it beacuse I’m too lazy to follow links, and I think there might be a lot of people like me . . . So I’m laying out what little facts I have. Is this the proper soltuion? Should I follow the steps as lited? What would be, if any, “side effects” of changing the settings?
“Vandelay Industries” 
Microsoft already has a patch available to combat this problem.
Symantec also has info on the worm.
Back off, man. I’m a scientist.
Ugh, is it me or is the [ url ] code acting sketchy?
Microsoft’s patch: http://www.microsoft.com/security/Bulletins/ms99-032.asp
Symantec’s info on the worm: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/vbs.bubbleboy.html
Back off, man. I’m a scientist.
McAfee is not known for the reasoned approach to new viruses. In other words, they send out heated, hysterical press releases at the drop of a hat. In this case, it doesn’t even appear that the virus is in the wild, so it hardly is worth a press release, let alone headlines.
Read “Sundials” in the new issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction.
www.sff.net/people/rothman
Jesus, I’m glad I’m out of computer support…I swear the people I worked for were idiots. I hated Outlook, everyone hated Outlook, so naturally they made it the standard…they must be excreting masonry right now.
I think I’m missing something here. What does this virus do, besides sending itself to everyone in your address book? It’s recommended above that if it’s already infected your address book you should do nothing. So, what? The virus enters your system, sends itself on to other systems, but other than that doesn’t do anything? Why would anyone care about a virus that does nothing? What have I missed?
Don’t get me wrong–I love life. I’m just finding it harder and harder to keep myself amused.
Lucky, it renames important system files.
Anyway, it wont do anything if you just see the subject header & delete then.
The link went to the story “Trial begins in 1970 beating death of black sharecropper” for me… heh. Oh well.
–
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com
Links to news stories at a lot of news sites (in this case a Florida paper running the AP wire) usually change stories within a day or two.
Further evidence of McAfee’s hype: the patch to prevent this problem was put up on Microsoft’s website two months before the virus was discovered.
This is way overhyped. It is not anything new; it merely exploits a security hole in the software, not the operation of the software itself. A small softare patch eliminates it, or any other virus like it, as a threat. It is thus not the indication of a new development in viruses (it’s nothing new for one to be programmed to take advantage of a security flaw – though those viruses rarely get into the wild).
If this was a real virus threat, why did McAfee wait two days after the news came out before putting updated virus definition files on its website? If their virus detection engineers thought it was such a threat, they would have had the patch available immediately. It was their PR department – and the fact that most mainstream media start running around like headless chickens when someone mentions virus.
Read “Sundials” in the new issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction.
www.sff.net/people/rothman