>- Speaking of Hoax virus warnings,, Dylan Sides said this to Scott Hoffman 
on 08 Apr 97  20:17 -<
 DS> No email reader to my knowledge does the equivilant of copying a
 DS> /text/ email message directly into a file and then executing it
 DS> automatically, or executes an email in any other way.  You know why? 
 DS> An email is text, not a program. Not only is it text, it's generally
 DS> 7-bit text.  
 DS> Show me an email program that can execute another program on the drive
 DS> automatically without the user doing anything other than viewing it,
 DS> or execute itself in any way.  A message is /not/ normally read by
 DS> anything other than a procedure that takes the text out of a file and
 DS> displays it on the screen.  Why would the author include a procedure to
 DS> do anything else with the email message when it's not needed?
Um, I hate to say this but you're almost starting to sound naive. Everyone
in this conversation understands that the message would not magicly run
a program, and edit.com would see the full thing, but we're talking about
a message viewer which might decypher it, and no, there aren't any yet (but
ms-mail might), but there could of course be one in the future.
Btw, 7-bit is out...many times I've sent and received 8-bit mail though it
screws up on some mailers.
And why would the author include a procedure like that?  Because he's trying
to be helpful, or he's trying to be harmful...either of those.
And you say "not normally read by anything other than...".  Well...sure, a
nice well-behaved mailer would stop there.  But not all of them are nice.
Steve
... Is that seat saved? No, but we're praying for it!
--- FMailX 1.22a+ / RA2.50+
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