[Spambayes] Ignoring Attachments

[Webb Scales]

Natalie Brondolo wrote:

> I'm just
> concerned that one day a virus will slip through that doesn't need the
> attachment opened to cause damage, and my anti-virus may not catch it.

Things like viruses, trojan horses, and the like need to be executed in order
to have any effect.  Their presence in a mail message does no harm (other than
burning network bandwidth and disk space).  They only cause a problem if
something opens the mail message, unpacks the enclosure, and decides to follow
its instructions.  SpamBayes certainly will not do this (or, at least not
directly -- I can't comment on what various Microsoft products will do if
SpamBayes requests the contents of a given mail message...).

So, I don't think you need to be concerned about SpamBayes and attachments,
any more than you need to be concerned about looking at them yourself.  If you
do have concerns, direct them toward your mail client -- make sure that it
doesn't do anything "automatic" with attachments (i.e., don't let it "open"
them without asking first, particularly if they are executables or anything
similar).  Just "reading" them is not a problem -- the problem arises when
your mail client tries to be "helpful" and automatically runs them for you
when you open the rest of the mail message.


                Webb


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Webb Scales                                Hewlett-Packard Company
scales (at) zko.dec.com                    110 Spit Brook Rd, ZKO2-3/N30
Voice: 603.884.2196, FAX: 603.884.0120     Nashua, NH 03062-2711
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
------------------------------------------------------------------------


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes/attachments/20040406/a63786ee/attachment.html