# You call that 'filtering'? (MyDoom related)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-call-that-filtering-mydoom-related/227901
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [February 6, 2004, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-call-that-filtering-mydoom-related/227901 "2004-02-06T21:02:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2004, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-call-that-filtering-mydoom-related/227901/1 "2004-02-06T21:02:45Z")
‘Newsletter’ from my ISP:
> [@](#):
>
> There a number of email viruses currently affecting internet users including MyDoom, Mimail, Dumaru and Bagel. Your BT Yahoo! Broadband service filters out such viruses from email attachments automatically…
So why the fuck have I had about 100 infected emails a day, and 7 appear in the inbox along with that fucking newsletter?!?! :mad:
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2004, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-call-that-filtering-mydoom-related/227901/2 "2004-02-06T23:42:02Z")
This is why you don’t trust your ISP to filter and get McAfee or Symantec instead. My Symantec has caught every single attempt to send MyDoom while the email was uploading to my computer. And the three incidents that did get through before the definitions updated were caught in a manual scan.
Never, ever trust your ISP’s virus filters to work perfectly. Ever.
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2004, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-call-that-filtering-mydoom-related/227901/3 "2004-02-06T23:52:40Z")
I don’t trust them. I have McAfee, but it only hassles me if I try to do anything _with_ the attachment.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2004, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-call-that-filtering-mydoom-related/227901/4 "2004-02-06T23:57:21Z")
Do you have it set to scan incoming e-mail? If you do, it should be scanning them as they upload to your hard drive and intercept the attachments before you even get notified that you’ve got mail.
It does it with my Netscape mail, anyway. I don’t know if it works as well with Outrage Express or any other email program, though.
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-call-that-filtering-mydoom-related/227901/5 "2004-02-07T00:06:30Z")
Yep, I’ve tweaked just about every setting I can find. In fact, having it pop up and inform me of every MyDoom attachment would probably be even more annoying than having to delete them myself.
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### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-call-that-filtering-mydoom-related/227901/6 "2004-02-07T00:20:04Z")
Am I right in thinking the mydoom virus can’t hurt me if I don’t open attachments?
I have the preview window turned off in outlook and I never click on attachments.
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### Author:  [@Sqube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sqube)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-call-that-filtering-mydoom-related/227901/7 "2004-02-07T07:12:36Z")
> [@Lobsang](#):
>
> Am I right in thinking the mydoom virus can’t hurt me if I don’t open attachments?
> I have the preview window turned off in outlook and I never click on attachments.
It’s always been my understanding that, as long as you don’t open an attachment or otherwise give a program permission to make modifications to your computer, you’re fine.
That said… I’m not impressed with anybody else’s claim that they’re scanning or filtering or anything like that. I have my own (admittedly software) firewall, my own antivirus software, and I don’t care if they say Jesus Himself made sure there were no viruses on it.
So yeah, they call it ‘filtering’. I don’t care what they call it, because I don’t pay it any mind.
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### Author:  [@Anonymous\_Coward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anonymous_Coward)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-call-that-filtering-mydoom-related/227901/8 "2004-02-07T12:31:49Z")
It could be that the attachment is getting stripped from the email at the Yahoo server, leaving behind just an empty attachment. The user still gets the email, but instead of the Attachment of Doom they get a text file attachment explainging that the original was stripped out.
That’s how our filters work anyways.
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-call-that-filtering-mydoom-related/227901/9 "2004-02-07T13:04:10Z")
Aha!!! Just looked at the McAfee report properly, and it’s not MyDoom. It’s another virus, 3 months old, also pulling the fake-Microsoft scam. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-call-that-filtering-mydoom-related/227901/10 "2004-02-07T19:21:29Z")
I’ve gotten a ton of MyDoom emails. Norton Anti-Virus smokes 'em every time. I still get the email but the attachment is eliminated.
Haj