Re: Newbie issues with Sylpheed-Claws Win 32.

Hi Brian,

On Sun, 20 Apr 2003 12:21:01 +0700 Brian Durant <[email protected]> wrote:

> What I am unsure of is whether NAV 2003 still protects enough without
> scanning the e-mails as it does with other programs.

Please define "enough".
If you expect NAV to better decode mails than Sylpheed, use it.
If the commandline scanner does a worse job than the GUI,
then complain at Symantec.

> I don't know how vulnerable SC is using NAV 2003

If you think NAV makes Sylpheed vulnerable, don't use it.
What did you really mean?

> I know that Sylpheed and SC has roots in Linux, but why concentrate
> on a command line scanner? What is wrong with getting SC to work with
> what most users are comfortable with - a GUI AV app?

Nothing, just set up the scanner correctly: Anything that changes
systems behaviour (virus scanners, personal firewalls) has to be
configured to work together with the other apps:

The "victim" apps don't get informed by scanners that a blocking
takes place - all IO functions simply don't return (and the app
cannot respond to anything --> hang). You cannot expect any
application to handle this.
Even checking access before *any* IO system call (just joking:
bloating the source with checks and checks for the checks
makes it unmaintainable) is no solution, if the blocking starts
-while- read/write is taking place.

Non-technically:
Working together requires *inter*action, but scanners only *act*.

And don't tell me only Sylpheed is affected - I experience
lots of problems at work with different software and different
scanners caused by blocking file access (of course without any
reason like viruses).

Securing a system is no trivial task that works without
configuration or system knowledge. This is an illusion
that sells well.

-- 
Thorsten Maerz          <[email protected]>
Sylpheed-claws/Win32:   http://claws-w32.sf.net

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