From: rich@example.invalid   
      
   John McCue  wrote:   
   > Rich  wrote:   
   >> candycanearter07  wrote:   
   >    
   >>>>   
   >>>> Why would anybody bother with .rar any more?   
   >>>>   
   >>>   
   >>> Compatibility?   
   >>   
   >> The more common reason is that rar is used in "the scene" for video   
   >> files (I believe because it was first, way back, with the ability to   
   >> split a larger than X size file into X sized chunks as part of creating   
   >> the archive).  And then taking the resulting "rars" and upon   
   >> extraction, recreating that "larger than X" file.   
   >>   
   >    
   >   
   > Probably for Windows viruses too.  I am getting rar   
   > attachments in spam and all the rar files contain a   
   > Windows exe File.  To me, these are obvious viriuses.   
      
   Yes, malware of some form.  Those are 'rar'ed to try to hide the   
   contained exe from email filters/scanners that will remove a file named   
   *.exe.  Rar was likely chosen because some better filters will look   
   inside zip files but were never written to also look inside rar.  And   
   since W11's file explorer now knows how to open rar files, the scammers   
   get to "bypass email filters" and still "get their target to run their   
   exe".   
      
   A trick to bypassing most of the filters (when you do actually want to   
   send an exe) is to just rename the exe file (as the filters were all   
   written by windoze users who have been brainwashed by MS that the only   
   way to detect the type of a file is looking at the extension on the   
   filename).  notepad.eze passes right through the filters, you just have   
   to tell the recipient to rename it exe once they extract it.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)