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. 


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