Trisha Cummings <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Steve,
>
>            I am glad you saw this and as List Administrator 3
> of 4  - I will see which one of us has the savey to handle
> this. Betty?  This maybe a Deri thing - and he maybe beddy bye
> by now - or maybe its only late afternoon there - 5ish 6ish
> ---
>
>                Trisha - who is latitudinally time challenged!!
>
> > I got caught waiting for a response from you or for the
> > Dystonia Digest. And sending warning.  It was serendipity
> > that I found Happy 99 attached to the CPL Digest and an
> > Unexpected Attachment from an otherwise blank apparently mass
> > mailing from Mag (see below.)?
> >
> > I hate "Crying Wolf."  Wasn't faulting Mag.  Virii take on
> > lives of their own when they find a computer to cozy.
> >
> > I tend to delete, then ask.  (One of those who doesn't like
> > surprises and uninvited visitors.)  Would any of the List
> > Manager's prefer I file and forward suspect attachments?
> >
> >  ISM
> >
Steve/Trisha,

Happy99 came from Darcy (Eric Smith) in his request to be removed
from the list, and so of course made it into the digest as well.
It was purely accidental as he later apologised:-

> Hello Everyone,
> I am very sorry about that and I don't know how it happened. It
> certainly wasn't intentional. I had a friend come over to fix
> the problem.
> Darcy

I covered the question of what we could do about filtering virii
at the Maelstrom end with Jasper (our previous list
administrator) sometime last year (before we took over as List
Administrators). There is no "virus guard" on the Maelstrom
server, the only tool which a List Administrator has is to limit
the maximum number of lines allowed in a single post, but since
Happy99.exe only takes up just over 200 lines after it has been
UUencoded this would mean setting the posting limit to 200 lines
max, which isn't that much when you consider this includes any
quoted posts within the message. Also this wouldn't exclude
smaller virii of less than 200 lines.

The best solution is to practice "safe" e-mailing, never click on
attachments unless they are plain text (.txt), web page (.htm,
.html) or one of the picture formats (.gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .png,
.tiff, .bmp - and a lot of other less well known ones).

If you have caught Happy99 and can't afford one of the virus
scanners to clean it away for you, please send me an e-mail and I
will send you step by step instructions how to get rid of it
manually (it's not too difficult).

Of course the really sensible option is not to use any Microsoft
Products, stick Linux on your PC and relax. :-)

--
Deri James