From: Ellen K. 

If on downloading an attachment the user saves it as a text file (.txt),
will the machine see it as a text file or as what it started out as?

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 03:51:49 -0500, Mike N. 
wrote in message :

>On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 20:55:53 -0800, Ellen K. 
>wrote:
>
>>OK, stupid question department:  How can a file with a JPG extension be
>>seen by the machine as anything but a JPG?   (Or is this the exploit?)
>
>   IE established a convention early on of sniffing the contents of a file
>to determine its true type.   Possibly this aided rendering anonymous or
>mis-identified streams from some web sites.   The autosniff feature is of
>dubious value but not the cause of this exploit.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5