Silent virus and filename check

[Martin Sapsed]

Antony Stone wrote:
> 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.

Seconded. The other useful case is when someone sends a word doc with a
macro virus in without realising it. I know it doesn't happen much but
it's a nice feature and to remove it altogether would be a bad move
IMHO. As Anthony says it's configurable and is in the process of being
made more so.

Besides, very few of the stupid responses I've seen in response to Sobig
messages have been from MailScanner implementations. They've mostly been
from the infinitely more expensive alternatives!

Cheers,

Martin

--
Martin Sapsed
Information Services               "Who do you say I am?"
University of Wales, Bangor             Jesus of Nazareth