This is from Norm, our wonderful sysop.
"Viruses in e-mail. It is possible to send programs in e-mail (and a macro
is just a program). By *running* the program, you could infect your
computer with a virus that came in that program. However, simply reading
the e-mail is not enough to infect your computer. The only case in which
you can infect a computer simply by reading mail is when you're using a
mail reader that has the capacity to automatically find and run programs
that are embedded in the mail. That is obviously a dangerous thing to do,
and very very few mail readers do that. AOL's doesn't, yours doesn't, mine
doesn't. In fact I've never seen one that does.
So the bottom line is, whenever you get a new program (whether on a floppy
or by mail -- and you should think of macros as programs), worry about
whether it could contain a virus. If you think chances are high, don't run
the program, and you're safe. Using the mail readers most of us use,
infecting one's computer simply by reading e-mail is not possible."
Kathleen
Kathleen B. Bruce, BSN, IBCLC, LLLeader, co-owner Lactnet, LLLOL, Corgi-L
LACTNET WWW site: http://www.mcs.com/~auerbach/lactation.html
Personal WWW page: http://together.net/~kbruce/kbbhome.html
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