Virus back door
Ron Gatrelle
gatrelle at tils-ttr.org
Sun Apr 22 14:19:05 EDT 2001
I know next to nothing about computers - somewhere just below amateur. My
son-in-law is at the opposite end of the spectrum. I recently asked him if
there was any way to "open" an email without really opening it - a kind of
back door to check what it is. (Now, most of you may already know the
following, but for the rest of us subamateur computer users...) When an
email comes in that you are not sure about here is what you can do (at
least with Outlook Express). Right click on the message which will bring up
an options window. At the bottom is a bar for "properties". Left click on
this and two more info panels will come up -- General & Details. Left click
on Details. At the bottom of that panel is another bar that says "Message
Source". If you left click this it will allow you to view the email in a
txt file without actually opening it.
In the details and message source windows you want to look for codes like
exe. and such codes that show that the message contains a program.
Now, I am still not brave enough to try this. I just delete. But to check
this out just go through the steps on an email you know is safe.
Ron
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