A little lesson about emails and viruses

[Daniel Gendreau]

There has been a lot of confusion on the list about this virus and whether
ppl have caught it or not.

You cannot catch a virus unless you open and run an infected .exe or .com
file. You cannot catch one by just reading an email for example. You
especially cannot catch them from text files or images.

There were several BIG warning signs here:
#1) The email had no text. Just a .exe file attachment.
#2) The file was unsolicited.
#3) It has a generic/silly name like "happy99.exe"

If you dont know what it is, where did it came from, for pete's sake, dont
run it. Especially if it has nothing to with the discussions here. At the
very least, you should email them back and ask them what it is.

All of this may make you a bit paranoid about viruses, however the internet
is fairly safe for the most part. As long as you have a good virus scanner
that is updated every 2-3 months you should be okay.

If you ran the "happy99.exe" program and saw the fireworks, go to:
http://members.xoom.com/Getvirushelp

-Dan G.