RE: in case nobody else noticed it, there was a mail worm released today

["Michel Py" <michel () arneill-py sacramento ca us>]

> Vivien M. wrote:
> Someone made the argument to me privately that the
> problem is that MS lets you run attachments from
> Outlook, while other clients would require you to
> save the files to disk. That's not a solution: if
> these people are like my parents used to be, they'd
> dutifully save the attachment, open up a file
> manager, and open it up to see the "cool new
> screensaver" their best friend sent them ("hey,
> even if it's a virus, I have an antivirus" is the
> usual excuse). Sure, that's three steps instead of
> one, but for as long as the HUMAN behind the
> keyboard wants to open the attachments, whether it
> takes two clicks or fifty keystrokes, that
> attachment will get open.

Indeed. I remember the good old days when I was working with an OS
called Flex, which was designed mainly for S-100 machines running the
6809 processor (ISTR that it was a competitor to something called OS/9).
Anyway, when one wanted to delete a file or do something like that, it
asked "are you sure" and your had to type "y" and then it asked "are you
really sure" and you had to type "y" again.

After a while our brains rewired our fingers so whenever the "y" key was
required it was hit twice in a row, which eventually led to new words
(spell check was unknown at the time) such as yyankee, honeyy,
new-yyorker, and so on.

We ended up hacking the kernel so it did not ask twice....


> and ISTR one patch for Outlook 2000 that blocked
> your ability to save executables was released)

It default in Outlook XP and Outlook 2003, which has prompted large
numbers of persons to download Winzip, which as not stopped worms to be
propagated as you pointed out.

Michel.