The medium and the message (was: on viruses)

[Robin Shoaps]

Hi everyone,

I agree with Celso that the Discourse list needs to consider the danger of the
medium to be used inadvertently in the spreading of worms and viruses. Almost
every message I receive from the list is an attachment, usually just a short
thing like an introduction. I had begun to think that this was some sort of
official policy.

Is there a reason why people have to send short messages as attachments? Our
department has had a rash of viruses and now as a matter of principle I don't
open attachments from people I don't know--sadly that includes almost the
entire discourse list. Perhaps attachments could be limited to areas where they
make more sense--like sending articles or other materials that we request from
each other.

Sorry if this is what some of you consider spam.

Sincerely,

Robin Shoaps

Department of Linguistics
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
U.S.A.

shoaps at umail.ucsb.edu