Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 15:29:09 -0500 From: "Joe Gwozdecki" <joegw@neosoft.com> To: "Andrew J Caines" <A.J.Caines@halplant.com> Cc: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Sending attachments Message-ID: <013a01c1feaa$aa2b62b0$0300000a@lyon> References: <005f01c1fe74$2a351d70$0300000a@lyon> <20020518184842.GB605@hal9000.halplant.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
I thank you for your kind response to my post and your point is very well taken. I did not know FreeBSD is not prone to viruses via attachments like other software was and continues to be. Best regards to all. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew J Caines" <A.J.Caines@halplant.com> To: "Joe Gwozdecki" <joegw@neosoft.com> Cc: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 1:48 PM Subject: Re: Sending attachments > Joe, > > > I notice some of you send in attachments with your posts. I can tell > > you I never open them. Too dangerous to click on anything today, in > > e-mail. > > I think you under the common misunderstanding that email itself is > dangerous, when of course it's not. Email is nothing but a piece of text > with at least one blank line in it. > > The danger comes only from the use of approximately one company's software > products. Despite this company's very well-known record for producing > fundamentally broken software which puts the user's data and system at > risk simply by its use (which is the worst thing any software can ever > do), a large number of people still seem to use it. I have no idea why. > > For example, I have used email for over a decade on many platforms and > using many different mail clients and have never had any problems such as > viruses, trojans, buffer overflows or other malware. > > > > I would humbly suggest never sending attachments if you want more people > > to read your stuff. It is just as easy to send it in the main body of > > your message. Otherwise, count on a number of people, never seeing what > > you wrote. > > That would be missing the point entirely. MIME is perfectly safe and is > the only standard way of sending `files' by email. It provides a way to > put the file in the message and to identify the type and name of the file > for the recipient. > > In a group like this, it is useful to be able to send patches and other > types of files. Trying to put this kind of content in the body of a > message makes the job of extraction unnecessarily difficult and > unreliable. > > What the recipient chooses to do with the mail and the file is entirely > the responsibility of the recipient. Just because you send me a script > which does a "fsck -y /", doesn't mean I have to save it, su to root and > run it without reading it. > > > So, in the end, perhaps instead you should advise others to "choose good > software and use it sensibly" and maybe offer suggestions. Since you're > posting to a FreeBSD group, you're mostly going to be preaching to the > proverbial choir. > > > -Andrew- > -- > _______________________________________________________________________ > | -Andrew J. Caines- Unix Systems Engineer A.J.Caines@halplant.com | > | "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary | > | safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 | To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?013a01c1feaa$aa2b62b0$0300000a>