> How advisable is it to download unknown "plug-ins"?
Plugins are not malicious with some exceptions.
1. Macs are immune to any malicious plugins. By immune I mean that the
computer may crash but no permenant damage can occur.
2. PC's are generally immune to plugins (NOT INCLUDING ACTIVE_X) because
plugins do not allow access to the complete file sturucture. Active-X is
another beast all together and you sould never use active-X controls
unless you know very well where it came from. On a Windoze machine
running 95 or NT, Active -X can access all levels of the host file
structure and is capable of modifing any file. It is also possible for
active -X to send files (ie your e-mail files) to another computer and you
will never know it happened.
3. Java is not a problem either because it only has access to its
folder. This is because Unix is the root for JAVA and those guys knew
networking while active-x was developed by microsoft without network wise
programmers.
If you want to find out more about security consult your local hacker or
alt.2600
Peter Pediaditakis
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From: pxpst2 at vms.cis.pitt.edu (THE GREEK)
Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.proteins
Subject: Re: Free molbio prg. available here !
Date: 18 Mar 1997 18:12:02 GMT
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