Charles Angelich (1:106/2000) wrote to Steven Horn at 05:08 on 15 Apr 2003:

 CA> The original 'infection' required some jerk of an employee who
 CA> opened the first one received. :-\ 

That it did.  I still remember who it was.

 CA> My point exactly. There is much gnashing of teeth and stress for
 CA> security patches for working OS when the REAL NEED is to get people
 CA> back to behaving in a professional manner at work and not
 CA> encouraging trivial emails being passed around the
 CA> office. If they receive what appears to be a trivial (personal
 CA> non-professional) email they should forward it to their
 CA> supervisor who should sack the jerk who has too much time on
 CA> his/her hands or over active glands while at work.

Do remember that if they make the mistake of opening the e-mail, what is
sent is sent automatically. 

 CA> Maybe what we REALLY need is a program that makes a ticking
 CA> clock sound when the cursor hovers over an email from anyone not
 CA> listed in our address books?  Possibly the comparison to a ticking
 CA> time-bomb might get the point across to the jerks?

That would help if the offending message came in from outside the Intranet.
 But would it save me if I received a message from my wife who works for
the same employer as I do which said "I love you"? 
Parenthetically, I'd probably 'phone her to tell her she had a computer
virus as she e-mails only when she needs something professionally, but
others might have different relationships.  

 CA> Did you ever consider that disgruntled (or psychotic) employees are
 CA> doing this on purpose?  I really do believe that this is similar to
 CA> the 'shop-lifter' folklore.  Most merchandise is
 CA> stolen by employees not shop-lifters.

The FriendGreet virus showed up on my home computer.  We use McAfee at the
office and I'll check if something has ever shown up there.  However the
"love bug" virus showed up at a time when Norton and McAfee had
not yet released their latest virus definition files.

As for employees doing things on purpose, I know that industrial sabotage
is always possible but there more effective ways of getting results.

 CA> To be honest, yes I think I usually do. He seems to be in a
 CA> 'place' where lying is not required of him. What can anyone do if
 CA> they catch him? Whine more about how rich he is?

I agree that Bill rarely lies but he has guessed wrong in the past. 
Microsoft was left flatfooted for a while when they did not appreciate how
attractive the Internet was becoming.  I don't think I have a copy of
Mosaic left but I still have my Netscape 1.0 disk. 

 CA> It's almost irrelevant. The important thing seems to be to make the
 CA> most of what we have however 'popular' it is with others, eat,
 CA> drink, and be merry (as the bible advises us) because we do not
 CA> know how much time we have here (even young guys like you). ;-) 

To everything there is a season and I have just bought a Honda Accord EX
V-6 with all the trimmings.  Horrendous overkill for this dusty frontier
town but I'll enjoy it.:-)

Take care,

Steven Horn (steven_a_horn{at}yahoo.ca)
Moderator, ALASKA_CHAT 
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+