Mail Viruses - True or false? ("JOIN THE CREW" message)

[Jamie McCarthy]

> Now sheesh, why would you want to set your e-mail reader to automatically
> run your attachments?  You could very well run a program that would pretty
> much toast your CPU or at least freeze up your machine...

Yes.  That would be a very bad idea!  But I doubt you'll find any
email program that would allow you to automatically run attachments,
without at least giving you frenzied warnings about what a bad idea
that is.

> I do suspect that Java can be used to hack via e-mail.  If
> you use Microsoft Outlook, that will automatically load all HTML files...
> I wonder if you could just put a java script / java in there to run a
> virus file?  Please correct me if I am wrong.

Java runs in a "sandbox" which cannot harm your computer or its
files in any way.  That's the theory, and so far the theory has held
up pretty well.

Bugs and other security holes in the particular implementations of your
internet software are the only real concern.  Security holes found in
various Microsoft products, for example, are tracked at this page among
others:

  http://www.tbtf.com/resource/ms-sec-exploits.html

"Join the crew" is a hoax -- just like every other rumor about email
that will do nasty things when you open it or read it.  Please see

  http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html#joincrew

and encourage people to stop spreading such hoaxes.

-- 
 Jamie McCarthy                 jamie at mccarthy.org