attachments

[Claudia Westermann]

please have a look

are there any viruses known with a file size of less than 50K ?

anyone some suggestions ? regarding the file size ?
greetings Claudia


Atle:

Yes, the list accepts very small attachments.
Contrary to what people tend to think attachments are not really "attached"
to email messages. Atttachments are as integrated in the e-mail as the 
subject line. This makes it difficult for listmanagers (like majordomo, 
mailman and sympa) to spot and stop attachments. The methods to stop 
attachments and virii is slightly different for each listmanager. Sympa 
uses two main methods as far as I know: one is to stop big e-mails. On 
Syndicate the limit is 50K. Very few - if any - virus will be less than 
50K. But yes there will be different types of attachments like bussiness 
cards that will not be stopped by this method. Obviously big images will 
not get through this size limit.
The other method is to detect patterns similar to virii and stop those. 
This will not stop general attachments.
There is no foolproof way to automatically detect and stop attachments. You 
have to live with the chance that attachments may get through. This does 
not mean that virii are distributed through the list, and does not mean 
that there will be problems with big attachments.
If you want another size limit please say so. Its currently set to 50K.
best,
Atle

PS: It needs to be said that people that uses Outlook Express and Windows 
OS you will be subject to virii no matter what. On our local network, and 
many others, the combination of Windows OS (all flavors) and Outlook 
Express is banned due to the high security risk. Even if you stay with 
Microsoft Windows OS but use Netscape for mail security will improve.