[GLLUG] SoBig.F Spam

[Marshal Newrock]

On Tue, 26 Aug 2003, Chick Tower wrote:

> I'm not trying to determine or assign blame, and it's too late to do
> anything about it for this version of the worm, but it would be nice
> if it doesn't happen when SoBig.G comes out.  That's especially true
> for those of us using dial-up access, because each SoBig message has
> an attachment that's about 75KB in size.  What really annoys me is
> that I had been using a Linux-only PC for about the previous three
> weeks, but a Windows worm can still screw with me.

It would be better if ISP's filtered email, even just by extension.  I'm
lucky in that I still get to use my school's email (as alumni and former
staff of the computer department).  When we set up the mail server in its
current incarnation, one of the first things we did (as far as filtering)
was tell it to reject various file extensions that have no business being
emailed, such as .pif files.  Various double extensions also get rejected.
So, when I saw that SoBig sends .pif, I merely smiled, knowing I would not
receive any copies of it.  There's also an antivirus program on the
mailserver (configured not to send notices to the sender as of the first
virus that spoofed the From address), but most viruses never get that far.

-- 
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