I'm sorry I digressed to the "filtering issue". That was not my point, and
I am not criticizing the list for the fact that these viruses are happening.
That, also, was not my point.
My point was that these "ignorant users" need to know that they are
propagating viruses and the rest of us need to know what to do about it.
While it is true that the issue is not specific to military vehicles, it is
nonetheless very a important discussion to the life of the members of this
list. The only way to rid the world of "ignorant users" is to allow open
discussion of the issue.
The comments about using obscure email programs and freeware operating
systems are irrelevant and irritating to me, too, but they are part of the
legitimate discussion on this list (for 98% of our members, Linux is NOT the
answer). Up until last night, I hadn't said a word on the list about this
subject, because I use a current version of Norton Antivirus and I have a
firewall (I, too, came out of the computer industry, and have owned an
internet development consulting company for several years). My response was
not motivated by any defense of anything I had personally posted (having
never posted a word on the subject). I was simply infuriated by the
sentiment that we shouldn't talk about the firestorm of viruses that are
sourced from this community. People need to be informed when these
outbreaks occur, and they need to know how to avoid getting knocked down by
them. A legitimate discussion of the subject is necessary. The solution is
a matter of opinion, but it has to involve Norton or MacAfee.
Joe Garrett
Cell 425-344-1402
-----Original Message-----
From: Military Vehicles Mailing List [mailto:mil-veh@mil-veh.org]On
Behalf Of Jim Newton
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 11:23 PM
To: Military Vehicles Mailing List
Subject: Re: [MV] Off topic virus warnings...
Hello List...
MV Content...does anyone need soft HMMWV doors cheap?
>I have received 7 viruses from this list in the past 36 hours. If this is
>not worthy of discussion, and is not of sufficient importance to be
>mentioned on the list, then I need to find a new forum for my interest in
>military vehicles.
>
>I will NOT be bombarded with viruses and then told to keep quiet about it.
I must agree totally with Joe on this.
>There is another list on yahoogroups that has not propagated one single
>virus in the time I have been a member. The reason is that yahoo filters
>the mail. If anyone else feels the same way I do about this, the address
is
>mvlist-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
As a few of you know, I own two successful Internet companies here in
the Silicon Valley (not dot-bombs) that support my MV hobby and then
some. I would be more than willing to host this mil-veh.org list and
provide complete attachment filtering if I thought it would help.
However, in the recent rash of viruses, such filtering would NOT have
prevented the viruses from reaching members. Let me explain:
Each of the viruses that we have received have reached us directly
(look at the "To:" field in the messages...you'll see your actual
email address...go ahead and look at the headers in one of the virus
emails then come back and read the rest of this message). Messages
addressed to this list reach each of us with our email address nowhere
in the message or headers...the list uses the "BCc:" field to send out
the messages, and the email server strips off the addresses (again, go
ahead and look at the headers, then come back). These email viruses
look through your Outlook address book and send messages with viral
attachments to all those in your address book, and some of the new
viruses look in your Outlook INBOX and OUTBOX to get addresses and
subject titles. Viruses cannot be propagated through the mil-veh.org
list because it is impossible to attach ANY file to messages sent to
this list address thanks to the folks that set it up and considered
this problem long ago (thanks to them!). The viruses probably TRIED
to send themselves to the list address tens of thousands of times, but
the mil-veh.org server shielded us all from the onslaught.
The YahooGroups list has not propagated any virus messages because
that is not how the viruses spread. If you had replied directly to
anyone on the YahooGroups list by their actual email addresses, and/or
received correspondence directly from them, then this virus and the
other worms WOULD have attacked you or the recipient.
I have set up my companies' email servers to filter out all suspect
attachments (.exe, .dll, .vbs, .scr, .pif, .bat, etc.), so even if I
were silly enough to use Outlook I would not be affected because no
virus that could execute would ever reach me. But as I said before I
use Agent from Forte Inc. so auto-launch is not a problem.
These viruses DO affect our communications about our beloved MV hobby,
and if enough viruses attack us then we might stop communicating,
which would affect all of us severely. I do not equate this
admittedly off-topic subject of viruses to blatant spam and other
unsolicited and unwarranted topics I have seen in the past.
Thank you.
--Jim "Ike" Newton
o 1984 M1007 CUCV Military Suburban 6.2 Liter Turbo-Diesel Engine 5/4 Ton Cargo Capacity, 4WD
o 1971 M35A2 Military Troop/Cargo Truck "Deuce and a Half" 478 Cubic Inch Turbo-Diesel Multi-Fuel Engine Air Shift Front Axle 2 1/2 Ton Cargo Capacity, 6WD
See them at: http://www.CUCV.net
=Mil-Veh is a member-supported mailing list= To unsubscribe, send e-mail to: <mil-veh-off@mil-veh.org> To switch to the DIGEST mode, send e-mail to <mil-veh-digest@mil-veh.org> To reach a human, contact <ack@mil-veh.org>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Dec 07 2001 - 00:37:00 PST