[extropy-chat] Virus problem inquiry

[Jeff Davis]

Friends,

As you can see I use yahoo mail for my email.  This
morning, in my bulk email folder there appeared an
email "from" eleitl at leitl.org, entitled, "Is this your
work?".  The email came with an attachment, and the
body of the email said only, "The attachment is
self-decrypting."

Now if I get a junk email, with or without attachment,
I send it straight to the trash, of course. 
Occasionally I'll open the mail, but never the
attachment.  In this case however, there was a
problem: it looked like it might--though I doubted it,
since "eleitl at leitl.org" isn't Gene's usual email
address as I'm familiar with it--come from Gene Leitl.
 I was suspicious, so I scanned the attachment using
yahoo's virus scan function.  Bingo, red flag, it was
a virus.

How did this happen?  How did I get an email
configured to look like something from Gene?  Is my
machine infected with something that helped to make
this possible?  (My Norton anti-virus is up to date,
and reports as of yesterday that I'm clean.) Is it an
infection associated with the list, or one or more
members of the list?  Gene's IT savvy is so advanced
that I can rarely make heads or tales of the
discussion when Gene goes there, so I think it least
likely that his machine is infected, but who knows.

I submit this in detail because it may be of concern
to others with more serious security concerns.

  Best, Jeff Davis

"We're a band of higher primates stuck on the surface
of an atmosphere-hazed dirtball. I can associate with
that. I certainly can't identify with which patch of
the dirtball I currently happen to be on, and which
monkey tribe happens to reside therein.

Only by taking the big view we can make it a common
dream, and then a reality. It's worth it."
                               Eugen Leitl

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