That Owl stuff

I always thought that ng messages were safe untill I found the winking owl downloaded to my computer. It was just a 1kb file, but it was a pop up and a download. This was not a pleasant experience. I use X News is there a reader that will avoid this stuff?

Reply to
jcoulter
Loading thread data ...

jcoulter wrote in news:Xns96C55C80B79FEyourvacation@216.196.97.136:

My (freeware) copy of X-News asked if I should run the file; I said no. It did save to a folder, scanning doesn't show viral content, but I'm sending it on to a couple of labs, once I find where I put the addresses ;) Also, forwarded copies of the post with headers to: snipped-for-privacy@ikano.com, snipped-for-privacy@swbell.net, snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net

I can't seem to find an abuse address for Aldi US, just in case this is a bit of "viral marketing", which seems to be an up and coming thing...

Sorry, no ObWine...I haven't had *anything* recently that I especially enjoyed; I'm writing it off to the weather :(

Reply to
enoavidh

enoavidh wrote in news:Xns96C5618A175B0enoavidhyahoocom@136.142.185.40:

That is what happened to me, I didn't open the file but got a pop up that asked me to.

Reply to
jcoulter

] I always thought that ng messages were safe untill I found the winking owl ] downloaded to my computer. It was just a 1kb file, but it was a pop up and ] a download. This was not a pleasant experience. I use X News is there a ] reader that will avoid this stuff? ]

Joseph, try sylpheed or sylpheed-claws. It's an excellent mailer/news reader, very fast, free, an essentially virus/annoyance-ware proof. Attachments are shown but never opened or run.

It's linuxware but I have a windows version (1.0.3) that works very nicely, as well as an Irix version. (Adele uses it for her primary biz email, and she gets _alot_ of mail, so it seems very robust).

HTH

-E

Reply to
Emery Davis

Emery Davis wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@address.com:

Thanks, I should clarify that the attachment did not run, I got a pop up that asked if I wanted to run it, but the file in the attachments folder was annoying and a little alarming.

Reply to
jcoulter

If you're referring to the reply by "your name" in MSG-ID , there was no attachment. What he/she/it did was to preface his/her/its reply with the words "begin

666" which most newsreaders interpret as the start of a UUencoded attachment. What follows, however, is simply the reply "The Winking Owl is great for thje price. Not too sweet and leaves a nice after taste." Look at the message source in your newsreader to see for yourselves.

HTH Mark Lipton

Reply to
Mark Lipton
[] ] Thanks, I should clarify that the attachment did not run, I got a pop up ] that asked if I wanted to run it, but the file in the attachments folder ] was annoying and a little alarming. ]

No popup with claws! :)

-E

Reply to
Emery Davis

just as a follow-up, I submitted the file to VirusTotal, and the 17 scanners didn't find anything...but I wanted to post a link to this useful site:

formatting link

And if you-owl will excuse me, I must just go buy some wine...no owls will be involved ;)

Reply to
enoavidh

DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.