>> From: Jean-Pierre Chapleau <[log in to unmask]>
>> Please everybody watch for a computer virus travelling on the internet
>> trough the e-mail system.  If you find a message with GOOD TIMES! as the
>> subject DO NOT READ IT.  I was told by my acces provider that it was
>> hiding a virus that activates itself when you read the message.  Destroy
>> such a message without reading it.  This virus automatically disseminates
>> itself to all the persons in your addressbook and does some very nasty
>> things to your hard disk and processor.
>
>        Your access provider is an idiot then...think about it, what's to
>stop me from changing the subject heading from "Good Times" to "Free Bee
>Supplies"? Or is the whole virus program dependant on the subject heading
>to trigger the virus in an ASCII file? And how can you execute and ASCII
>file anyway? 8-}
>
It is (or was) possible to triger an action just by displaying an ASCII file!
If you were using an ANSI (aka VT100) terminal AND your mail reader did not
intercept escape sequences AND you were running a common shell or command
interpreter... then a devious message could do just about anything it wanted.
 
        -- Dan O.