Fun_People Archive
8 Dec
good times

Date: Thu,  8 Dec 94 16:14:38 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: good times


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Uh-oh, what's that rattling sound from the disk drive?!

Ha-ha-ha ... Just kidding
(If I were the type to use emoticons [smileys - eech] I'd do it here.)


A Fun_Person, Paul Elliot <paulel@microsoft.com> (or maybe it was really
Richard Levine <ralevine@halcyon.com>), raised the point:

> ...
> I thought mail was ASCII rather than binary, and that even an executable
> sent via mail would be encoded in ASCII.  Wouldn't something that did
> this type of thing have to be executable?  If so how can it run without
> first being decoded?

    They're right, of course.  A lot of mail systems have hooks to allow mail
messages to run programs.  Probably the best known is the facility to embed
sound, pictures, programs, or whole subtrees of files sometimes known as
"enclosures."  Are there any systems that, in the grand tradition of "knowing
what the user wants," automatically execute enclosures?  I'll bet there are.
The more naive the user is perceived to be, the more likely the system is to
want to "help" by removing the dreadful confusion of making choices.
    Even systems that are notorious for forcing people to make choices for
themselves and know what they're doing (e.g. Unix) aren't immune.  Robert
Morris Jr.'s "sendmail" virus was sent through the mail.  It exploited a hook
in the program that sends and receives mail for the whole system, so no 
one had to even read the mail for the virus program to spread.
    It's apparent that the Good Times virus has been a hoax (although the
warning was a virus in its own right), but you never know when someone 
will be inspired to use a "well-known" hoax virus name ...

     ---------- Peter Langston -- psl@acm.org -- Seattle, WA ----------
Fun_People Archive 8 Decgood times

Fun_People Archive
8 Dec
good times
