On 29/8/2003, Rob Saecker wrote many sensible things:

But makes an all too common mistake:

>Nevertheless, there has to be an executable file (which has to
>be executed) for infection to occur. And there is no way to include
>an executable file in the body (text) of an email, it has to be an
>attachment. An email with no attachment cannot spread a virus.

klez and it's cousins are the counter example. Klez doesn't use an
attachment, it uses HTML to execute javascript, which is used to
obfuscate calls to active-x, which allows you to run any code on the
target machine. This is one of several ways to get caught by trojans
at web sites, too. (By the way, MS announced 5 new security holes in
Explorer for windows this week; windows users need to go get the
updates pronto if you haven't. Since many mail clients use the
Explorer rendering engine to display html, bugs in explorer translate
to bugs in the mail client.)

It would be nice if UW would make demime an option for the lists.
demime does an excellent job of not only stripping all attachments, but
html too, converting it to true plain text. Sometimes the conversion
isn't beautiful, but it's always non-executable.

>I'll second the vote for Macs, and add that the only way to spread
>viruses from Mac to PC is by using Microsoft products which have not
>been properly secured. If you pass on Outlook, Explorer, and Office,
>the chance of virus transmission is nil

Almost nil, anyway. It possible to have your mail client auto-forward
your mail to a someone else, or even a group of people... And I've
seen people forward things by hand, not understanding what was going
on. There will never be a way to completely stop people from shooting
themselves in the foot.

I'll third the suggestion for a mac, but I also realize that it's a
significant cost for the change of hardware and software. It's easiest
to do when you need a new computer anyway.

To escape from windows cheaply, and in a way that you can get your feet
wet without making a full commitment, try out linux. You can download
it for free, but it's four(?) CDs, so it's worth it to spend the $30 or
so to get the disks and printed installation manual. Or share the
price with some friends--it's legal! Assuming that your computer isn't
ancient, and you have a couple of gigs of spare hard disk, the current
redhat 9 release is easy to install as dual-boot (you choose at each
startup whether to boot into windows or linux). The RH 9 user
interface is much improved over the old days, and comes with a variety
of applications such as OpenOffice, multimedia manipulation, etc.
OpenOffice seems to do about as well at reading/writing MSOffice files
as MS Office is between major versions of itself, though YMMV depending
on which features you use most. (As with *any* upgrade to your system,
backup thoroughly first!)

To bring this just a little bit back on topic: the computer/networking
habitat is behaving exactly as one would expect a biological habitat to
behave when there is an overwhelming monoculture. Monocultures simply
*beg* diseases and parasites to come eat them. The cure isn't to get
rid of all windows machines, or to make either mac or linux become the
only dominant OS--the only chance for real stability will be to have at
least a half dozen different OSes with roughly equal influence. There
will still be outbreaks, because there will always be vandals, but they
won't have the massive effects you get with monocultures. Diversity is
strength.
--
Allyn Weaks allyn at tardigrade.net Seattle, WA Sunset zone 5
Pacific NW Native Wildlife Gardening: http://www.tardigrade.org/natives/
"The benefit of even limited monopolies is too doubtful, to be opposed
to that of their general suppression." Thomas Jefferson