On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 18:30:16 GMT, Ken wrote:

Richard Clark wrote:

Richard;
Hope you don't mind if I respond to each part of your post?

Not if you don't object to my clipping extraneous material here.

Yours is simply the same chorus before you: "It ain't about MS."

Really? Where did I say that? I don't even use Microcrap, why would I
defend them?

I cannot speak to your motivation. I can respond to its appearance
however.

"The O/S has nothing to do with who the virus's are sent to:"
Which it TRUE!

Perhaps so, but hardly a subject that merits discussion unless this is
a recovery group where we all talk about feelings.

I don't use windows and have a bunch of e-mails with virus's in them.

Well, do they present an issue vis-a-vis the virus, or simply the
quantity of mail clogging things in general? You don't offer much to
separate what issue you are responding to.

I think you miss read what I was saying, or maybe I didn't make myself
clear. Your system doesn't have to be infected to receive a bunch of
E-mails with the virus. Everyone was complaining about the number of virus
e-mails they were receiving. That doesn't mean that their system is
infected. It does mean that an infected Microsoft system sent them. Is
that better?

Perhaps. I see nothing to consider except to observe that those who
have suffered are likely candidates for spreading the same contagion.
You implicitly offer you are not one to be part of that vector, but
again you've offered nothing in that regard to distinguish what it is
that brings you forward.

I am reacting to those who think that all danger is external (the
fuzzy warm feeling that if there are miscreants mining newsgroups for
names and addresses, then our sufferers are not part of the problem);
nothing could be further from the truth.

Didn't mean to upset you Richard, it sounded like you wanted to discuss
where the list of e-mail address's were coming from that had virus's sent
to them. Do you repond to all posts in such a manner? My first post to
you and respond like I have been arguing with you for the past 2 weeks. I
doubt that you even bothered to read the rest of my post after you saw the
O/S part of it.

And yet you have nothing to offer about where they came from. Every
post made is an act of personal choice. If you choose my
observations as an issue, I respond to that. If you choose
where the list of e-mail address's were coming from that had virus's sent
to them.
then you would have offered that in your post. You did not. I cannot
respond (or actually I hesitate) to my projections of what I think you
want. Others here do that quite well - generally that is very
unsatisfactory dialog (being one-sided and all).

I have offered both points of view throughout this thread, you have
not responded to where I presented the discussion of news group
mining. Again that is a personal choice of yours for which I am not
in a position to dictate.

You presume I want to discuss where the address's are coming from.
Actually no, I have no interest in that at all. It would seem even
fewer of the complainants here do either. I observed earlier that
rraa does not appear to have been mined for any list. I also observed
that if newsgroups were being mined, then those sufferers apparently
became part of the contagion somewhere else, or through some other
activity. Absolutely no one has stepped forward to enumerate their
other activities (public health goes down the crapper in such times if
other activities reveal the vector).

To this point, today, I have received only 7 emails, all of which
triggered the usual porn filtering mechanism. That is fairly typical
for my public exposure here, and I participate in a dozen odd other
groups to notice that discussion of this virus is a wholly alien
subject. This, to me, suggests that the premise of newsgroup mining
is so much looking under the bed for monsters. I have corresponded
with one here who posts to one technical group that is heavily
trafficked by potential miscreants (or so is my presumption by his
description) and I would speculate, yes, any open address in that
group (especially if you respond to those with an attitude) is a
target of opportunity.

But just what does a target offer? A new vector of infection, and if
that target is practicing anti-viral lifestyles, that presents a
fairly limited contagion that barely rises above sniffle.

Just one not practicing an anti-viral lifestyle has, through MS
products, the capacity to spread infection like a firestorm. Hence,
it doesn't really matter where the address's are found, there are
30000 different groups that need only offer a thousandth of a percent
hit rate to cascade into millions.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC