[wilsmith at IGLOU.COM: Finally: a Virus MS Outlook Can't Spread! (fwd)]

[Buddy Brannan]

Yeah, OK, you've probably already seen it, but...

   SatireWire
   Provider of Satire

   FOOT-AND-MOUTH BELIEVED TO BE FIRST VIRUS
   UNABLE TO SPREAD THROUGH MICROSOFT OUTLOOK
   Researchers Shocked to Finally Find Virus That Email App Doesn't Like

   Atlanta, Ga. (SatireWire.com) -- Scientists at the Centers for Disease
   Control and Symantec's AntiVirus Research Center today confirmed that
   foot-and-mouth disease cannot be spread by Microsoft's Outlook email
   application, believed to be the first time the program has ever failed
   to propagate a major virus.

   "Frankly, we've never heard of a virus that couldn't spread through
   Microsoft Outlook, so our findings were, to say the least,
   unexpected," said Clive Sarnow, director of the CDC's infectious
   disease unit.

   The study was immediately hailed by British officials, who said it
   will save millions of pounds and thousands of man hours. "Up until now
   we have, quite naturally, assumed that both foot-and-mouth and mad cow
   were spread by Microsoft Outlook," said Nick Brown, Britain's
   Agriculture Minister. "By eliminating it, we can focus our resources
   elsewhere."

   However, researchers in the Netherlands, where foot-and-mouth has
   recently appeared, said they are not yet prepared to disqualify
   Outlook, which has been the progenitor of viruses such as "I Love
   You," "Bubbleboy," "Anna Kournikova," and "Naked Wife," to name but a
   few.

   Said Nils Overmars, director of the Molecular Virology Lab at Leiden
   University: "It's not that we don't trust the research, it's just that
   as scientists, we are trained to be skeptical of any finding that
   flies in the face of established truth. And this one flies in the face
   like a blind drunk sparrow."

   Executives at Microsoft, meanwhile, were equally skeptical, insisting
   that Outlook's patented Virus Transfer Protocol (VTP) has proven
   virtually pervious to any virus. The company, however, will issue a
   free VTP patch if it turns out the application is not vulnerable to
   foot-and-mouth.

   Such an admission would be embarrassing for the software giant, but
   Symantec virologist Ariel Kologne insisted that no one is more
   humiliated by the study than she is. "Only last week, I had a reporter
   ask if the foot-and-mouth virus spreads through Microsoft Outlook, and
   I told him, 'Doesn't everything?'" she recalled. "Who would've
   thought?"

----- End forwarded message -----

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Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV    | I choose you to take up all of my time.
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