Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Open me! I am teh s3cur3 f1l3!

I rarely open email attachments or click on links in emails unless I:
A) Know the sender personally and trust their computer acumen.
B) Can see that the link goes to a real website I recognize, or trust that the attachment is something they generated themselves and are not just passing on via a link from their grandma's chain email glurge.
This policy has served me well since I first started dialing up bulletin boards in the '80s.
More from Ted at Bore Patch, a certified computer security dude...

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

So I guess that means you didn't take a peek at the 1904 vintage S&W 32 Long I sent the other day.

Chris

Borepatch said...

Hey Tam, click here for cool gun pix! Ignore the "Application terminated abnormally" messages ...

;-)

Anonymous said...

All the best videos are in .exe format!

( BTW, watching a browser trying to implement a dos .exe file on a LINUX or Mac box is rather amusing .... )

Anonymous said...

"Hey Tam, click here for cool gun pix! Ignore the "Application terminated abnormally" messages ..."

Well, we had passed emails back and forth the day before and at a previous time regarding an unrelated subject, so I figured she would have recognized the email and assumed I wasn't trying to attack her system since I still needed a favor. ;)

Chris

Anonymous said...

This is why I don't trust web browsers; I do my surfing via wget.

Jay G said...

"More from Ted at Bore Patch, a certified computer security dude..."

And destroyer of Teletubbies...

Anonymous said...

OT but...

It looks like the mighty snark of Tam has kicked KdT right off the internet.

Now, who's pussified? LOL!

Tam said...

Chris,

"So I guess that means you didn't take a peek at the 1904 vintage S&W 32 Long I sent the other day."

Yes, I did. You don't seem like a computer 'tard, and your attachment was a .jpg, so I took a chance. :)

Anonymous said...

Tam, did you ever open the Nokia.mp3 video I sent you? I know you have cats and well, I love cats and dogs myself, and that video was just too funny to not share. I just hope you're not mad at me for sending it to you.

Anonymous said...

Tam: If you are really worried about attachments, use a System 9 or less Motorola 680x0 Mac to bust your email open.

Because of low market share ( both then, and especially now ) absolutely no exploits exist for that platform.

Hostile email attachments just sit there and look stupid.

In fact, it's a good platform to give to a kid to surf on ... almost absolutely nothing out there now on the internet will load on the puppy ... at least, not without a lot of searching.

Home on the Range said...

I got an email from our IT person that warned of some virus that was being sent around in the form of an email that looked like something you'd sent.

With it was the note.

"warning. if you receive an email from yourself, and you don't know who sent it. . please delete without opening."

sigh

Anonymous said...

I agree with everything said here. However:
"watching a browser trying to implement a dos .exe file on a LINUX or Mac box is rather amusing .... "

They crash my OS 9 box.

"absolutely no exploits exist for that platform."

Autostart worm. Personal experience:(
--------------------------
I have people at work who have several times my level of education ask me, and I am not (completely) making this up, 'How can it be a virus if it says I love you?'

The phishing scams are the worst, though. At some point, I have to stop them and say 'I've given you my opinion. Do what you think best.' It never ends well.