X-Message-Number: 6650 Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 21:34:22 -0400 (EDT) From: Charles Platt <> Subject: Good Times virus Contrary to a statement on CryoNet yesterday, there is no Good Times computer virus. The Good Times virus is a hoax that has been circulating online for a year or more. For further details, consult the Good Times FAQ which can be found on the following servers: http://www.nsm.smcm.edu/News/GTHoax.html http://vm1.hqadmin.doe.gov/goodtime.html http://www-mcb.ucdavis.edu/info/virus.html I have no information about the .zip virus that was also referred to, but I know that at one time in the past there was a bona-fide PKZip virus in a .zip file. As most computer users know, a file must contain executable commands in order to function as a virus. Email generally does not contain such commands, with the possible exception of ANSI escape sequences and Microsoft Word files that contain automatically executing macros. ANSI sequences will only work if you have loaded an ANSI interpreter, and Word macros will only be dangerous if a document is opened using Word. In both cases remedies are available: ANSI filters and a fix from Microsoft, respectively. More information on these topics can be found online using search engines such as Webcrawler or AltaVista. The bottom line: no one needs to worry much about e-mail. Now let's get back to our regularly scheduled programming. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6650