Email Internet Virus

[Preston Hardison]

   The only pathogen here is the "Goodtimes Virus Alert". This hoary old 
   cyber-legend has been circulating around the Internet for three or 
   four years now, and is well known to be a junk alert. There simply is 
   no danger from a "Good Times" ascii file. You can get a virus from 
   a program embedded as a binary attachment to an email message, but  
   only after you have downloaded the file and executed it on your PC. 
   Merely reading an email message will not cause harm to your computer. 
   If someone knows otherwise, please supply an authoritative reference 
   (the reference to the "FCC" in the alert is bogus). Please don't 
   forward the alert on to other lists. 

   Preston Hardison 
   pdh at u.washington.edu