Dear Jo and List, If I get an attachment from some one I do not know. I copy it to a floppy disc first and call upon Norton Anti Virus to scan the floppy disc for a virus. This usually works well and I have caught at least two in the past few moths. But you must update your Norton Software package, periodically so the latest viruses are in your software. This can be done by downloading the latest list from Norton Utilities. But to be absolutely sure that an attachment does not have a virus you need to scan each and every one with a Anti Virus. Reason: A person can have a virus in their machine, which passes the virus to you and they don't even know they have it or are passing it on. That's the nature of the virus. Recently, my nephew sent me a email with a joke attached. Knowing that he was a good guy and would never send a virus, I opened it without checking for a virus. About an hour later he called me via telephone to tell me he had passed a virus on to me and found out that he had also passed it on to everyone that was listed in his address book; that he sent a email message. So you can get from an attachment and not even know you have it and unknowing pass it on to others. I have more info on that particular virus if anyone interested or go to Norton WebPages and they explain it well. It was named the Melissa <sp> virus. Best Regards, Jimmy E. Cooley Researching Surnames ARRINGTON BAILEY BISHOP BOUNDS COOLEY McCARTY NEUGEBAUER PHILLIPS SANDERS SULLIVAN WALDEN. LOUISIANA-PARISH: Beauregard, Calcasieu, Sabine, Vernon, and Winn. MISSISSIPPI-COUNTY: Clarke, Jasper, Newton, and Wayne. TEXAS-COUNTY: Angelina. Jimmy Earl Cooley 2402 Peachstone Court Silver Spring, Maryland 20905-4314 ----- Original Message ----- From: Deason Hunt <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, July 10, 1999 9:20 PM Subject: Re: Attachments & Virus Protection > Jo, > My undrstanding is that, yes, you cannot get a virus from reading email. > However, if there is an attachment that would launch aprogram and run upon > opening, then a virus could be introduced. My policy is that I do not open > attachments unless I know the person (or the group such as in a subscribed > digest). I just trash the others. > Deason Hunt > sinca wrote: > > > My Win. 98 Outlook Express allows me to read my messages without opening > > them. Isn't this much safer than opening an attachment? With that > > possibility in mind, I'm unsubscribing from the Digests I'm on. Would > > appreciate other opinions on this. > > > > Sincerely, > > > > Jo Sawyer > > ______________________________