Re: Question re:Xnews and a-holes who post zip trojans

[Tech Zero]

Reality folded in on itself, and somewhere the following words from
"" appeared in history:

> I've noticed that when you click on a post that contains a zip
> archive, Xnews will respond after the post loads:
>
> attachment decoded
>
> With Xnews, the file isn't seen on the hard drive until you
> actually choose to download and save the file. Assume you don't
> save the file and go on to the next post, is there any chance of
> the exe file in the zip spreading to the computer?

Unfounded...

Xnews doesn't decode a file until you ask it to, or have set Xnews to
automaticly do so (by passing it to the default ZIP program). Because
of this there is little chance of you getting /infected/ by any /bad/
zip file, since it's not even a file until Xnews decodes it.

If you have a screen cap of what you're seeing, or a link to that
post, it would help clear up the /misunderstanding/.

> I've noticed that the mbx file of the newsgroup disappears from the
> Xnews data directory once the group is closed.

Xnew generates a temp MBX file while you're reading posts from the
group, but it's little more then a text file.

--
__ __| | __ __| | __ /
| \ -_) | -_) _| \ / -_) _| _ \
_| _| _| \___| _| \___| \__| _| _| ____| \___| _| \___/

Missing a quantity of sleep to help others since 1997...

[Tech Zero]

Reality folded in on itself, and somewhere the following words from
"" appeared in history:

> In Xnews, if you click on a post that has a zip attachment (and
> doesn't state so in the header), a message appears in the body of
> the screen as follows:
>
> begin (and three numbers usually appear):
> attachment decoded: xxxx.zip
>
> where xxxx = name of the file.

That's not a decoded file, it's just the attachment placeholder within
the txt file your reading...

It's just Xnews' way of saying "click here to decode this crap".

> I'm assuming that this is decoded to the temp mbx file.

No...

The MBX file is a "storage locker" for all downloaded articles within
the current group. This is done for speed; to keep from pulling the
same article more then once during a group sesion.

MBX is the Unix Mail BoX format, a specially formated text file where
binary attachments are little more then strings of text. These files
are tempary for groups (within Xnews) and are only stored after a
session when you have "store Headers & Bodies" selected.

Does this answer your question?

If not, Google "MBX format" for more info, or just open one of those
"suspect" MBX files in Notepad and see for yourself. }:8P

--
__ __| | __ __| | __ /
| \ -_) | -_) _| \ / -_) _| _ \
_| _| _| \___| _| \___| \__| _| _| ____| \___| _| \___/

Missing a quantity of sleep to help others since 1997...