I do not claim to be a virus expert, but I would like to share some virus
information with you. Those who are time-limited can jump to the moral
at the end.
You simply cannot get a virus from reading email. There is no possible
way. A virus is a program, just like Excel or Word. You can't run Excel
just by looking at it, you have to tell your computer to run the program.
The same is true with viruses. You have to execute them (intentionally
or otherwise) before they eat your hard disk and delete your files. Some
virus live in the boot sector of your hard drive, and some attach
themselves to the end of executable files.
Macro viruses eat your hard drive when you open the file they are
attached to. If you don't know who sent you the file, delete it. Or
scan it with your anti-virus program. Just don't open it.
The moral: You cannot get a virus from reading your email. You can get
a virus from reading files attached to your email. You can get a virus
from downloading programs from the internet. You can get a virus from
the nasty girl you picked up in the bar (you know the one - she kept
looking better the more you drank).
Get an anti-virus program and use it.
A one-time victim of a virus attack, but never again,
Thomas James Pokrefke, III
1970 MGB
thomas_pokrefke@juno.com
http://ocean.st.usm.edu/~pokrefke
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