>>>  ... threat that looks like an official e-mail from the CIA or FBI
>>> but can leave your computer wide open to intruders.
>
Perhaps if you have a very guilty conscience.  The one I received was
from 'department@cia.gov' and contained significant grammar errors.
Besides, I know as an american that if the CIA gets mad at me, they'll
come knocking down my door with a swat team, not send some reasonably
polite email, cause I watch TV!  Shucks, with the stuff I do rather
openly, I'll probably just disappear to a 'camp' in cuba...


> Since I use Gmail, I feel safer than people browsing their mail on a
> dedicated mail program (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.).
>
> Does anyone have a feel for the veracity of that?

Gmail, or yahoo, or other web-based email systems, insert presumably
highly-supported, well maintained, carefully monitored, and very
up-to-date email client software in between you and any viruses or
worms/etc that might be out there.  I would think the involved
companies have a very strong interest in NOT seeing such malware
propagated.  In addition, malware that exploits actual bugs in the
client software (buffer overflow cracks and such) would end up
attacking the host software and not your PC software.  However,
web browsers are equally guilty to most pc clients in that their
ease-of-use features still allow you to easily do stupid things
like 'click on the attachment', so "social engineering cracks"
like this one wouldn't seem to be much safer read either way.  And
browsers have their own list of crackable bugs...

BillW

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