THERE COULD be a bright silver lining to the I Love You or Love Bug virus.
Perhaps it could finally shock people into thinking about the way they use
e-mail, and at least try to learn how to handle the megaton power of a PC.
The Love Bug spread as an attachment to e-mails. Anti-virus software failed
to trap it because the bug was not on any lists of viruses. Internet companies
AOL and CompuServe say they cannot block delivery of a virus because that would
amount to tampering with private mail. Well, maybe they have a point. But quite
why they cannot find time to warn users about what they are delivering is
probably clear only to their lawyers.
So what to do?
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For ages Feedback has been begging IT companies and their public relations
people to e-mail press information as plain ASCII text, which cannot (yet) hide
a virus, instead of fancy-fonted Microsoft Word binaries that most certainly
can. Some companies have sneered and carried on sending binaries. Others have
sulked and stopped sending anything. Feedback has long suspected that they will
not or cannot write plain text.
Recent events bear this out. Feedback has received a spate of e-mails that
are peppered with gibberish such as &8217. When quizzed, the senders say
they are working on better Word-to-plain-text conversion. Why they can鈥檛 just
write plain text in the first place or save the document in plain text remains a
mystery.
And it is always nice to know that some things never change. Long after the
Love Bug struck, Microsoft鈥檚 PR agency sent out a few words of
text鈥攄ressed up as a fancy binary graphics file.
MEANWHILE, reader Neal Todd has found that Microsoft is offering users of
Outlook鈥攖he Windows e-mail program that the Love Bug hijacked to spread
itself鈥攁 鈥渟ecurity update鈥�:
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloaddetails/Out98sec.htm.
Anyone can download this fix free. It stops
Outlook receiving attachments that can hide a virus, and also stops an infected
PC sending e-mails that spread the infection.
Describing the update as a 鈥渟ignificant security enhancement鈥� Microsoft
quickly adds that although 鈥渢his update limits certain functionality in Outlook
to provide a higher level of security, it was not created to address a security
vulnerability within Outlook鈥�. This sounds a lot like lawyer speak to us.
Microsoft dares not leave Outlook鈥檚 door wide open to viruses. But. . . let鈥檚
just say that lawyers would always advise against hinting that there鈥檚 ever been
a problem. Which there hasn鈥檛. Newspaper claims of billions and billions in
damage notwithstanding.
ON A closely related theme, reader Keith Franklin would like to thank the
writer of the Love Bug for supplying this moment that he will treasure forever.
Franklin works at a research institute in Japan. The building controller of his
new lab, whose English is a bit better than Feedback鈥檚 Japanese, noticed that
Franklin was having problems with his computer. He walked over to him, looked
him in the eye, and said: 鈥淚 Love You鈥�.
ON 20 MAY, reader Patrick Groark marked the culmination of the English
football season in traditional fashion: by settling down in front of the TV to
watch the FA Cup Final. He opened a beer and a packet of Twisties. Having eaten
the Twisties, he noticed on the back of the packet a panel stating: 鈥淏est before
W 29 5BG X 01:02.鈥� So, should he have eaten the Twisties?
LAST YEAR, Gerry Kendall from Britain鈥檚 National Radiological Protection
Board wrote a fascinating article for the board鈥檚 monthly bulletin about
protecting airline passengers from cosmic radiation. Called 鈥淓qualising the
window seaters鈥�, it suggested that aircraft manufacturers were keen to install
mechanical conveyor belts in their planes to rotate passengers around the cabin,
doing a complete circuit every 45 minutes. People in window seats, Kendall said,
are exposed to significantly higher levels of cosmic radiation than those
sitting further inside the plane. Hence the application of 鈥渇airground
technology鈥� to share the load.
In June 1999, Kendall鈥檚 report was reproduced in the US in the newsletter of
the Health Physics Society. From there it was picked up in January this year by
Nuclear News, a monthly magazine published by the 11 000-member
American Nuclear Society. The author of the article, Susan Bailey, quoted
additional benefits: 鈥淧assengers could disembark in an orderly fashion, as their
seat passes the door of the aircraft.鈥� Even better, 鈥淒rinks and food could be
distributed self-service as passengers pass a cafeteria area. The result would
be a cut in staffing needs.鈥�
Readers are advised always to check the original source. The article on
NRPB鈥檚 website (www.nrpb.org.uk/Rpb 211-4htm) now bears the reminder 鈥淩eaders
are requested to note that this page was first published on 1 April 1999.鈥� Who
says government agencies don鈥檛 have a sense of humour?
THE IDEA that a good medicine has to taste horrible can be taken to extremes.
One doctor鈥檚 prescription for loperamide hydrochloride capsules carries the
instruction: 鈥淭ake 1 capsule with each loose stool鈥攎ax 8 daily.鈥�