Re: [h-e-w] mailcap file and filename/type associations for Windows 95

[Stephen Leake]

Jason Rumney <address@hidden> writes:

> Stephen Leake <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > That's what 'application/*; start "" %s' should do.
> 
> I wouldn't recommend that. You will end up giving Emacs the same
> security level that Outlook shipped with by default two years ago. I
> think even Outlook has tightened up its security since then, and now
> forces you to save executable content rather than running it directly.

Well, I'm a reasonably intelligent person, and I know how to decide
whether to execute an attachment or not. Having made the decision, I
don't want my tools to force me to type several keys, instead of one.

Should dired refuse to launch Word on a .doc file, because it might
contain a virus? Should I have to go outside Emacs to launch a Word
file?

If people are stupid enough to double click an attachment, I don't see
how making them save the file first, and then double clicking on it,
adds anything.

> You should explicitly list only content types you know will be safe
> (image/* should be fine, and maybe text/*; I'm not sure if ms-word
> macro viruses come through as text/ms-word or application/ms-word
> though).

Since I often get Word documents, and I can't tell from the outside
whether they have macro viruses, forcing me to save them instead of
opening them directly adds no security. 

Hmm, I guess I could run a virus scanner on Word files if they are
saved, and hope that the scanner knows about the virus that happens to
be in there. Better would be a "virus filter" that Gnus can run before
opening attachments. Or can I do that from the Windows side? I used to
have McAffee set up to scan any executable before it ran; I don't know
if that works now for Word files.

I have Word configured to not enable macros; _guarrenteed_ safe, and
it requires no virus scanner database that gets old!

-- 
-- Stephe