Re: Re: Anybody Recognize These Uploads?

[Christopher Hicks <chicks () chicks net>]

On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, R. DuFresne wrote:
> It's okay to disagree, and yet, if lusers could learn so well, we;d
> certainly see far less trouble with e-mail viruses.

[This really isn't intended to be flaimbait, but I suspect some will take
it as such.  Sorry.] Educating users isn't the issue with e-mail viruses,
Outlook is.  A number of the e-mail viruses that spread like the plague
didn't require any user interaction whatsoever so user education was
certainly not relevant.  Even people who are admins and certainly know
what not to click on got nailed.  But the only people I've seen having
regular problems with these buggers, are the all-Outlook shops.  We
support a few dozen clients locally with a wide variety of e-mail setups.  
We've never had e-mail virus troubles with the ones that stuck with
Netscape, Eudora, or switched to Linux desktops.  The only solution for
the Outlook diehards was filtering at the server, but that only helps
after the anti-virus vendors have had long enough to get a fix out.  
(Check out MailScanner at www.mailscanner.info if you haven't already,
it's really slick.)

The number of crazy, kludgy solutions that folks have thought-up and
attempted to mitigate what's really just a really badly implemented MUA is
awe-inspiring.  We had one client that would have their server shut-down
it's port on the etherswitch and unmount their data drives any time a
virus was detected on the LAN.  All for the love of Outlook.

-- 
</chris>

Programming is a Dark Art, and it will always be. The programmer is
fighting against the two most destructive forces in the universe:
entropy and human stupidity. They're not things you can always
overcome with a "methodology" or on a schedule.
                -Damian Conway, Perl God

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