Viruses can only infect when they are executed. In other words you can copy the file as much as you like. Saving, using cat to read it, vi to edit it or whatever. This is even safe on a Windows machine so go ahead and use Notepad. In Windows (and a few other) email attachments are dangerous for alot or reasons. The icon shown is in some cases extracted from the .exe file, which can lead to that the program is exectued when you open the mail. It is all to easy to run stupid stuff, just click on it and then yes (or not even the yes step), lusers do not read messages boxes. Some mailers understand html, java and/or javascript. Embed som nice features in there and you get the problem when people open their mail. Old folks like myself (hmmpf 24 years) usually say that it is safe to open mails as long as one does not touch the attachment, sadly that is not so anymore. Default is to hide the file extension so that we also get the nice problem of sexygirl.jpg.vbs, is it a nice girl or a virus? In other words Outlook, IE and VBS engine are all parts in the wounderfull VRE [1] called Windows. [1] Virus Runtime Enviroment. -- Security only costs $30. http://www.openbsd.org/
