Attn: Possible Virus Warning - People On Yahoo Mail?

[tarchon]

Umm, I really hate to continue this OT thread past it's first point, but I really must say that this is extremely bad advice.
(No personal attack intended, I just wanted to point this out for those who don't know alot about virii, so they don't think they can get away without some form of virus protection.)

If you know what you're doing, which is an important condition, to be sure, antivirus software is largely unnecessary. Every virus alert I've ever gotten from NAV (which is, BTW, a bug-ridden pile of dung) has been a false alarm, and I suspect that's the case for a lot of people, but who bothers to check? Through the various eras of infectious code evolution - EXE viruses, BSVs, macro viruses, email worms - nearly all common viruses have spread by a few simple mechanisms, so if you block those, your chances of getting a virus are miniscule. I've never had an infection in 20 years of using PCs, and that's not accidental. I have dealt with infected PCs in my lab in the past, but, interestingly, I've never seen a case in which the virus actually did any damage. Now, I've seen dozens of instances where people _blamed_ data loss on viruses, but I've personally witnessed 0 in which there was any evidence for that. The number of times I've had people ask me if symptoms like screen flickering or mouse jitter from a dirty trackball were caused by a virus has made me pretty skeptical about a lot of people who swear up and down that a virus ate their harddrive (I think this is partly due to the fact that many computer users are deeply confused about the difference between a "virus" and a "bug"). I've even seen professional admins blame their troubles on supposed viruses for which there was very little evidence, but it does make for an easy answer when the boss asks why the network crashed. Viruses are out there, certainly, but the topic gets a little overblown, not in small part because of the enormous amount of money that's made in selling AV software.
Ironically, I've probably spent dozens if not hundreds of hours over the years coping with virus false alarms and AV-induced system problems though. I would agree that some people need to have it, but it's worth avoiding it if you can.

 

[Eridanis]

Please, continue to discuss - but I'll slide this over to its rightful home in Software & Computers.

 

[Tsyr]

I'm gonna sort of echo that again... I've been using computers for many years now, and in all that time I've gotten one virus... And I knew I got it, and from where, as it was a case of deliberaly infecting myself with it to test something. I've never 'ran' virus scanning software, though I load it up every 6 months-1 year just to do a check out of curiosity.

 

[Chaz]

I just got an email in my yahoo email today that doesnt have an attachment... however i suspect its not from yahoo.

It looks to be -from Yahoo! Services" <verify@yahoo.com
Subject: Verify Your Yahoo! Mail

message reads: Dear Yahoo! Mail User,

We'd like to share some important information with you as you get to know our service:
At Yahoo Mail, we're committed to using the best technology available to help protect your privacy. Yahoo! Mail does not share your personal information with any third parties, except under the limited circumstances described in our privacy policy, or unless you choose to be listed in either the Yahoo! Directory or the Internet White Pages directory.

Yahoo! Mail is changing its database platform so you must confirm your information to use your account permanently, if you do not confirm your information, your account will not exist in new database and your mails will be deleted.



To confirm your information, please click here

The thing is you would think they would be able to see automaticaly that I am using the email. When you click on the link it takes you to a page that doesnt start with yahoo in the url(although its in there a ways in) and they right off ask for email id and password. Odd since I had to be logged in to read the mail already. And when i look at the expanded header I see this

From: "Yahoo! Services" <verify@yahoo.com>
Reply-to: verify@yahoo.com
To: wahshing99@yahoo.com

wahshing99@yahoo.com??? this looks odd

I dont want to lose my email but this seems like some kind of scam.
I emailed info about it to 2 diferent yahoo help places but i got an instant form letter back from both that seem to say check help files for your answer..... DOH!

Anyone have an idea on this? Thanks either way.

Chaz.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I have recieved 4 viruses via e-mail.
Because I am paranoid none of these infected my computer.

I have recieved 1 virus from an infected floppy.

Because I am paranoid I caught the virus by running an AV program, so it never infected my computer.

I have caught one virus by going to a site to have my e-mail adress removed from their porn spam sendings. (I did not sign up for them, nor had anyone using my computer. The infection was SPYBOT, a worm.)

Because I am paranoid and check my computer for virii daily I caught it, hopefully before it sent out any information from my machine.

On the Amiga I have one virus saved to floppy, simply because it was neat, and because my Amiga has no hard drive. (An eye opens up on the screen, looks around then closes. Just kind of neat.)

I have that one because I was cleaning somebody else's computer. The nitwit kept wondering why so many of his programs kept crashing.

Because of the way copy protection worked on the Amiga even a non malicous virus could cause it to fail if it wrote to the boot block.

The lesson here is that you can never be paranoid enough, always have an AV program ready.


The Auld Grump