Giveaway: Digital Picture Frame

I haven't heard of that happening anytime recently, but it was the big buzz five or ten years ago. Just another reminder that security comes from a mindset, not any one rule or set of rules. :) Also a reminder that sometimes you can't live down a bad reputation.

I should note, Microsoft does have two registry keys that you can set to tell your Windows computer what media it is allowed to use autorun on, and I don't recall that any viruses from these devices ever targeted Macs; Linux, of course, is secure because almost nobody targets it for viruses. I don't recall which keys or values to set in your registry, but this should be findable online. I heard it from a Security Now podcast; sadly, I forget which one it was.

I warned people about email viruses

Ah, but did you warn about scripting, or just that viruses would come? Because text-only email (if you ignore attachments) really *is* immune to viruses.

If the code is never executed, then it will never do anything. Period. The thing with self-opening attachments is due to a misfeature of the email client, trying to be helpful by allowing scripts to run or showing attachments when a message is opened. Current attacks use not only attachments, but bugs in Windows image processing which allow a specially crafted jpeg or other image to run machine code. Plaintext which is never executed, but only ever displayed, cannot take action.

The problem comes when "everyone" wants a feature which is guaranteed to cause problems down the road. The feature is put in, it causes problems, and either lots and lots of workarounds are added, or the feature is disabled by default.