>  REGARDING           RE>Virus Alert
>
>David Eyre writes:
>"This morning my e-mail downloaded automatically 2 unsolicited files on
>Varroa. When I tried to print them out my Norton Anti-Virus Alert informed
>me they were infected with a virus.
>        Timid.431. {2}.   This virus will affect your .SYS files and
>Command.com may halt your computer.
>        PLEASE, PLEASE could we stop sending unsolicited files, if you have
>an important file which you think would be of value, then ask, or better
>still run it through an anti-virus first."
>
>Well, I received the same two files as enclosures, put them in my hard drive,
>and after your warning, went to print them out.  I had no trouble doing this
>- they printed out fine after I changed the text format to Word format.  Then
>I ran the virus detection program Disinfectant on my Mac, and no viruses at
>all were detected.  There must be a major difference between your system and
>mine.
>
>I greatly appreciated the paper on selection for varroa resistance in
>honeybees.  But I will have to agree with your advice, that one should ask
>first before sending unsolicited material, no matter how generally helpful it
>may be.
>
>Ted Fischer
 
I also greatly appreciated the article, which I found fascinating.  I read
them as an ASCII file using Q edit.  I did not check for virus, and I
believe that nothing happened.  Moreover, if the previous discussion on this
list is correct, and I believe that it is, then you cannot import a virus in
an ASCII text file as long as that file has no executables in it (such as
macros in a Word Perfect file, which is not the same as an ASCII text file).
 
Allen Dick made the point back in the previous discussion, that we all
should have checked the "swarm" screensaver before we executed it, and there
I agree. (Wasn't it a lovely screensaver though; I am still using it).  I
think that putting restrictions on people including pertinent text files as
attachments is paranoia.  I personally am not sufficiently adept at using my
mailer to have figured out how to get an ASCII file into the body of my
text, and if I had something of interest to share I would have to include it
as an attachment.
 
I know that I run some risk of bringing disease back to my farm when I visit
another farm, or other farmers visit me, but beyond practising reasonable
sanitation I would never stop visiting.  Would you stop interacting with
other beekeepers because you *might* pick up a bee virus from them?  So even
if a slim possibility exists that someday someone will figure out how to
transmit a virus in a text file lets not let our good discussion be held
hostage to that.  I found the files Hans sent very informative and most
pertinent.
 
Regards,  Stan