SCAT Electronic News 5 March 1998

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SCAT Electronic News 5 March 1998

Suggestion re: Vintage Glider Class
===================================

From Glider man Martyn Cowley

Roger,


The concept for a class of "old" gliders is great , but, rather than create
another new Free Flight class, please consider adopting the same cut-off
date and rules as that already in existence for all the NFFS Nostalgia
classes, which is Dec 31st 1956. The San Valeers club has run a series of
Nostalgia Glider events for the past 3 years and I know at least half a
dozen flyers who could enter right now with the models they have built
already. I see no significant difference between models of this period
especially as this is essentially a fun event (with balsa wood and tissue
models) and not a technology race. If you dis-allow these models (up to
'56) you will only be denying the event these addition al entries.



The Truth about the Lost Hills Fungi
-----------------------------------

From Bob Waterman

From my experience growing up for 20 years in the Bakersfield area, there
are two main types of funghi in the valley. One is edible and my parents
and I used to pick them by the bagful in Feb and March after rainfall.
These are identifiable in that the gills are either pink or as in the case of
older ones, brownish. Additionally, you can pick a section of the skin of
the cap and it will peel easily in a thin layer.

The non-edible second type is know as a toadstool. It only has white gills,
and the gills do not open well. Also the skin does not separate off the cap.

We never had a bad one with the above in mind while picking.

Valley Fever does not come from either of these two types. It comes from
decaying F1C fuel in the dirt.


Waterman

.. Bob , I always thought that it was the endo thermic reaction created by
an F1A towline wrapped around the rear wheel and chain of a motor bike
that created the most fever in the valley ... RMM

E-Mail Viruses
--------------

I sometimes get message from SCAT Electronic News
subscribers talking about e-mail viruses. I have never included
any of these messages beacuse they are basically hoaxes.
I understand this well because this is the business that I am in.
Being a little lazy I did not take the time to write something about
this but include below something from the Free Flight Mail List
written by Marty Sasaki with some further comments by Martin
Gregorie.

With reference to e-mail virus messages.

The Join the Crew virus is a hoax, just like the good times virus.
Please do not forward the warning mesage to everyone.

Currently there are two types of viruses that can be sent via email.
The first type requires saving the message (or attachment) to a file
that is then run as a program. The second type is opening something
with an application that uses macros. The best known of these is the
Microsoft Word virus.

It is important to note that it is impossible for a virus to exist in
the normal text portion of an email. A virus could be carried within a
file attached to an email, but this could only be spread by detaching
the file and executing it or (if it contains macros) opening it with
an application that could execute the viral macros. Therefore, with
current email technology, it is impossible to become infected with a
virus simply by reading an email.

See the page below:
1. Sophos' Join the Crew hoax virus description
Name: Join the Crew. Type: Hoax email virus. Danger: None.
http://altcomp.com/scares/jointhecrew.htm - size 2K - 28-Aug-97


Actually some have said that this type of message *is* a harmless virus
- its just that it is manually spread by people who do not understand
their computers.

Martin G's comments

If you use a standard e-mail reader that sends and receives
plain ASCII text you *cannot* get a virus by receiving or sending mail.

There are just two ways of getting a mail virus or Trojan attack

1) Saving an attachment containing a program, WP document or
spreadsheet and then running or opening the attachment without
checking it first - as described above.

2) Using a web browser (especially Microsoft Internet Exploror 4) to read
mail. If anybody sends you an HTML or MIME page as e-mail it can
start to run when you open it.

Unfortunately M$ have a lot to answer for here - Word, Excel and IE all
install preconfigured to run macros, execute HTML & MIME e-mail etc.
without asking you first. IMHO you are just asking for trouble if you
continue to run these (and other) programs without reconfiguring them to
ask before running things that have arrived from the Net - its the same
as leaving your house unlocked and expecting not to be robbed.

You should probably also consider running a decent anti-virus package
such as Dr. Solomon.

Sorry about the length of this, but the steady re-appearance of this
lame old hoax over and over really gets my goat.

Martin

London, UK


My local computer Guress gave me these as sites to check on computer
viruses or hoax messages:

http://www.nai.com/services/support/hoax/hoax.asp (McAfee Site)

http://www.av.ibm.com/BreakingNews/WhatsNew/ (IBM site)

Richard the K
Bremerton WA
USA



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Roger Morrell