source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 17:42:52 -0800 Subject: VIRUS From: Gary Morrison Consider that, for a virus to infect a system or at least for it to "do something to a system", your computer has to execute it as a program. Programs, in that general sense of the word, are the only way a computer can do anything including damage. Although this is getting a LITTLE blurrier over time, there is currently no way that merely reading a message can cause the content of the message to be executed as a program. Messages are strictly data. Java and helper apps in Web Surfing make that distinction a little less clear than it has been in the past, but still, as yet, messages sent over the net don't run as programs. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 15 Mar 1997 16:55 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA23693; Sat, 15 Mar 1997 16:55:01 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA23689 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id HAA00654; Sat, 15 Mar 1997 07:53:14 -0800 Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 07:53:14 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu