Dear Kate Lobos:
1) Attachments are an invaluable tool for scientific (and other)
exchange of information that cannot be presented as unformatted text.
The trade-off is that you also accept the risk of viruses. This is
similar to accepting 30,000 people to be killed in traffic accidents
each year in return to having the convenience and the speed of driving
your own vehicle instead of walking or riding your horse.
2) Attachments or no attachments, you would need an antivirus software,
because in addition to the e-mail, viruses can be uploaded to your
computer from your Intranet or with the diskettes of your students (or
kids). Once you have the antivirus software up and running (hopefully
with automatic weekly Internet updates of your virus database), it will
take care of most viruses, so that attachments may not seem so dangerous
after all.
3) Dealing with computer viruses is similar to dealing with influenza
viruses, it is better to have some exposure (rather than to live under
completely sterile conditions), the only difference is that instead of
the T- and B-cells, one has his/her brain cells primed...
Best regards,
victor
www.alphadna.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities
[mailto:abrf-request@aecom.yu.edu]On Behalf Of Kate Lobos
Sent: March 26, 2001 9:29 AM
To: Recipients of ABRF List
Subject: RE: MMS notification
Dear administrators,
Is it possible to configure our server in such a way that it does not
accept
any attachments? I've seen it done with other mail servers and it works
wonders to protect news groups against viruses. Simply not allowing
executable attachments without any measures to enforce the ban does not
work, as we have just witnessed.
Kate Lobos
RiceTec, Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: MMS [mailto:mms@coh.org]
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 1:24 PM
To: Recipients of ABRF List
Subject: MMS notification
Please note: Due to new viruses being generated everyday, executable
attachment types are not allowed in incoming messages at COH. A message
sent to you originally contained one or more such attachment types which
were quarantined. Please contact the helpdesk if you need this
attachment released. Please remember, only business related attachments
will be released. Below are some information regarding the message.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Apr 02 2001 - 10:20:50 EDT