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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gottfried who wrote (27168)	5/26/2002 2:52:56 PM
From: Larry S.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110655

how do you select those options for yahoo email? i couldn't find the choices. tia. larry

To: Gottfried who wrote (27168)	5/26/2002 9:35:40 PM
From: Robert Graham	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110655

E-mail scanning only applies to having the e-mail sent to your PC, or activation of the attachment. When an e-mail is viewed from a service like hotmail, a web page is created that represents the text of the e-mail. So all you have is the text with perhaps a display of a picture. The e-mail attachment becomes active when you decide to open it, which downloads it and activates the attachment. So as long as you view the e-mail from their web page, you should be OK. It is when you download the e-mail, or activate the attachment, should you be concerned about a virus. So a web based e-mail service actually provides a level of protection that your PC cannot provide. That is because most Windows installations have WSH (Windows Scripting Host) installed and active. This means that any script set up to run when the e-mail itself is opened (not its attachment) will run on your computer when the e-mail is examined on your computer. But when the e-mail is examined from another web site, this does not happen. This means you do not have to open an attachment to get a virus. All you need to do is examine an e-mail with an attached script that is set up to run when you open the e-mail. It may be wise to turn off the e-mail preview window in Outlook. Because when an e-mail is previewed, but not opened, any autorun script is still activated. The best solution is to get an anti-virus software that autoscans incoming e-mail and its attachments. I hope this clears some things up. :-) Bob Graham PS: Scripts are easy to put together. A person who is taking BASIC in high school can write a script to install a virus. Also the script can do damage itself without a virus. This can include examine files, send them across the Internet, and delete files on the system. This case would not involve a virus, just a script program.