Silent virus and filename check

[Antony Stone]

On Tuesday 26 August 2003 7:47 pm, Gerry Doris wrote:

> With all the stupid responses being sent (especially to lists) I really
> wish the "feature" to notify senders was removed altogether from
> MailScanner.  It's turned out to do nothing but add more spam to our
> lives.

No, I think it's a very useful feature for the viruses which do not forge
sender addresses - of which there are enough still circulating (and who
knows? maybe the next big one will be like that again?) - because in this
instance it can easily provide the first notification to a user that they
have a virus on their machine at all, and help them do something about it
before their machine sends too many more out to the world.

I agree it's important not to send these reports in response to things like
Sobig, but I think it is important to send them in response to other types of
viruses.

The really neat thing about MailScanner is that this is configurable and you
can control it however you want - no reports at all, all reports, or only the
sensible ones.

The answer to Gerry's wish might be for the default action to be changed to
"don't return any notifications", but please don't remove the feature
altogether, Julian.

Regards,

Antony.

--

The idea that Bill Gates appeared like a knight in shining armour
to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos
neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling
second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place.

 - Douglas Adams in The Guardian, August 25, 1995