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B***** Virus Writers - RonO's Ramblings

Oct. 13th, 2004 01:58 pm B***** Virus Writers

Having nothing more productive to do at work today, I was playing with a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) function that will take the MS-Access database and convert it into a text file that should be able to populate a mySQL database (or possibly any other SQL database) with the same tables and data.


Since I have no use for this at work -- I don't have access to an SQL database that I could move the one Access database I maintain at work into -- I am thinking of using this with the DucKon registration database to create a proof-of-concept that I could move the data to MySQL but keep the functions I need at-con under Access where I rely too heavily on specific Access features.


Since the database, or at least the out-of-date scratch copy I have here at work, has a bunch of strange extra fields in each table, I modified the function to eliminate these; and then had to debug my modifications.


Once I had a working version -- or at least enough of a working version to send home -- I tried to send it home. First, I exported the code from MS-Access, creating a file with a .bas extension. Next, I tried to e-mail this home. That is where I ran into trouble. Apparently there is some virus floating around that uses files with a .bas extension. To prevent the spread of this virus, some part of the Motorola e-mail system will not allow such files to e-mailed.


So, thanks to some immature people who think that randomly disrupting or destroying other people's computers is fun, I had to compress a 12KB text file in order to e-mail it home.

Current Mood: angryangry

4 comments - Leave a commentPrevious Entry Share Next Entry

Comments:

From:deteriorata
Date:October 13th, 2004 12:29 pm (UTC)

blocked attachments

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Ron, if you are using Outlook (Outlook 2000 SP1 or newer) the problem may be that files with .BAS extensions are blocked. Microsoft has a KB article with instructions on allowing access to those attachments. But since you figured out how to work around it by zipping the files, you might not need it.
From:sraun
Date:October 13th, 2004 12:31 pm (UTC)
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The alternative would have been copy&paste into body text?

IIRC, the problem you have just described is an Outlook/Exchange default config. There are a number of file-types that M$, in its infinite wisdom, declared "too dangerous to e-mail". And then hard-coded this behavior on the Exchange server - you had to do registry edits on every Exchange server if you wanted to change it. What I find amusing is that DOC and XLS files are considered safe, when compared to some of the stuff that isn't.
From:rono_60103
Date:October 14th, 2004 08:49 am (UTC)
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Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't have control of Motorola's vast array of Exchange servers, so I'll stick with my work around until they decide to start looking inside of zip files :-(.


I also suspect that MS shares at least some of the blame for my frustration with the virus writers. After all, if it wasn't for the ease of creating viri for MS applications and systems, there would be fewer out there.


RonO

From:sraun
Date:October 14th, 2004 09:52 am (UTC)
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Oh, yeah - temporarily forgot my favorite way to get around it. Rename the file. Instead of *.BAS, make it *.B_S, or *._AS or whatever - as long as the extension does not match anything on the list, the file is "safe".