Snowhite and the Seven Dwarfs - The REAL story!

[Doug Yanega]

Maarten wrote:

>Ok, I have to explain here that I am a computer networking
>professional with amateur interest in butterflies :-)
>In his message are some headers that point to some other
>systems, possibly the systems this person uses to put this
>binary in this newgroup (e.g. a dialup system at the provider
>kiva.net). In my experience it doesn't hurt to send them an
>abuse mail.

In most cases I'd agree, but when a person's e-mail account has been
hijacked by a worm/virus, and sending out copies of itself without that
person's knowledge, then sending an *abuse* complaint to their provider is
the wrong approach; it implies *intentional* abuse. Better to send a "heads
up" to the ISP and say "You've got an infected user and might want to trace
them and help them remove the virus". If that's what you did, fine. Me, I
avoid viruses by using a Mac that does not use Outlook. For people who feel
they MUST use Outlook, some tweaking of the default settings is helpful, as
has been pointed out, and another strategy is to simply NOT use the address
book (if there are no addresses in it, no virus can use your e-mail to
proliferate itself).

Peace,


Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
           http://entmuseum9.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82



 
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