CHAT: Virus (Was: Re: Fw: Sorry about that -- disregard my last message and do run the program.)

Dear Jay,

Forgive me for saying so, but Your response to Eric's mistake
is absolutely uncalled for and (to put it politely) rather unenlightened.

As we have seen the email virus causes no damage and merely
propagates itself via email.  Eric made the mistake of running
the program.  It thus sent itself to the list.  He then wrote
a warning message with a faulty subject line.  And he is at
fault?  Are You out of Your mind?  Kristian's warning message
does not even call attention to itself.  If anyone were at fault
(and other than the creator of the virus, *no one* is) it would
be Kristian.  Eric's message clearly contained a warning *not*
to launch the program and even included a webpage for
disinfecting one's computer.  So...

1. If someone runs a strange, unexplained program recieved
via email, they deserve to spend the half an hour to disinfect and
apologize to people on their address list.

2. If people were actually stupid enough to not check the text of
the body of Eric's warning message and act on ridicoulous advice,
they downright need to spend that time to learn about internet safety.

This message is being sent to the list so that anyone delusional enough
to consider blaming Eric (or Kristian) can read this an reevaluate their
thinking as well.

And my thanks to Eric for posting the disinfection website! :-)

----- Original Message -----
From: Jay Bowks <jjbowks@...>
To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, November 21, 1999 9:33 AM
Subject: Fw: Sorry about that -- disregard my last message and do run the
program.

> >No problem Eric, just send your mailing address to the
> >list for all those that did take your advice and did open the
> >file and had to get the computer shop to re-do their computers...
> >They'll simply send you their bills and you can refund them
> >privately, as I said, no problem.
> >
> >Since,
> >Jay B.