Greg
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Background

I use standard SMTP-compliant mail on a UNIX system, so I don't suffer at all from the “viruses” that infest toy operating systems. Still, I interact with them, and I frequently see this sort of message at the end of Microsoft-domain mail messages:
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.8.1/28 - Release Date: 24/06/2005
I've always thought that they're particularly stupid. It's trivial to add them at the end of a message. To highlight this issue, in June 2005 I started to add the following text to my .sig:
The virus contained in this message was not detected.
That caused a surprising amount of confusion, but after a while it got boring, and I currently have:
The virus contained in this message was detected by LEMIS anti-virus.
That, too, has caused confusion, noticeably from somebody—admittedly not very bright—who equated it with the PGP signature that I add to my mail messages. I got the following reply. And yes, the text is original, including the breakage.
Why did you send an attachment???? file.bin ...  it is a virus and lemis anti-virus detected it???whats up with that????

Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org> wrote:On Tuesday, 5 July 2005 at 19:56:23 -0700, J.  Random Luser wrote:
> First i tried to make my own installation cd(s) from the instructions given, they did not work so I e-mailed for answers got two different answers neither of which worked so i bought the installation cd(s) ver 5.4...I downloaded the manual which is of little or no use due to variations in installation methods described in the manual and what is actually shown on screen...the ports collection came with it...when i use the make install command it tries to access the internet..then i get a message saying, it couldnt fetch,...  try manually...  error 1...what is the problem i would really like to use this operating system...I also bought a book for $47 which is useless, the title is misleading..."The design and implementation of FreeBSD" is of no use unless you want to know what the processor is doing from start to end....what a waste of money......I am familiar with unix and still have my unix book from college, in addition i have a bachelors of science in computer information
> systems...Im begining to believe that this is all BS unless i get some straight answers...

Try reading http://www.lemis.com/questions.html and rephrasing your
question.

Greg
Of course there's no file.bin in the message. I don't know whether he imagined that, or whether his MUA (Yahoo! web mail) invented it. Still, I know I'm hitting home when I find, in somebody else's message,
- -------
Greg's virus checker didn't find this one either.

The LEMIS anti-virus

The LEMIS anti-virus is simple: it doesn't exist. I don't send messages with “viruses”, and if I receive any, the spam filter usually takes care of them before I even see them. If I do, I can “open” (i.e. display) them with impunity. So if you have a problem with “viruses”, it's your problem. Just don't believe any message you read at the end of any mail message saying that the message has been cleaned. And don't trust vendors of bona-fide “virus” checkers who add that kind of text at the end of a message: they're trying to lull you into a false sense of security.


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