I learned a computer trick today that's really
ingenious in it
simplicity.
As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into
your computer it
heads > straight for your email address book, and
sends itself to
everyone in  there,  thus infecting all your
friends and associates.
This trick won't keep the  virus from getting into
your computer, but
it will stop it from using your  address book to
spread further, and
it will alert you to the fact, that  the worm has
gotten into your
system.

Here's what you do: first, open your address book
and click on "new  
contact" just as you would do if you were adding a
new friend to
your  list of email addresses. In the window where
you would type
your friend's  first  name, type in AAAAAAA. In the
window below
where it prompts you to enter  the new email
address, type in
[email protected] . Then complete  everything
by clicking add,
enter, ok, etc.

Now, here's what you've done and why it works: The
"name" AAAAAAA
will be placed at the top of your address book as
entry #1. This will
be where  the
worm will start in an effort to send itself to all
your friends. But
when  it tries to send itself to AAAAAAA, it will
be undeliverable
because of the  phony email address you entered
([email protected]). If the first  attempt
fails (which it will
because of the phony address), the worm goes  no  
further and your
friends will not be infected.

Here's the second great advantage of this method:
If an email cannot
be  delivered, you will be notified of this in your
InBox almost
immediately.  Hence, if you ever get an email
spelling you that an
email addressed to  [email protected] could
not be delivered,
you know right away that  you  have the worm virus
in your system.
You can then take steps to get rid of  it! Pretty
slick huh?

If everybody you know does this then you needn't
ever worry about
opening  mail from friends.  Pass this on to all
your friends.

Actually, you wouldnt necessarily get notice of the failed email.

Some of those virus's disguise the return email on the email. So if my email sent it to a bogus address, but it disguised the senders email (me) as [email protected], then he would get the failed message notification, not me.

I wonder if some evil virus creator can program the worm to circumvent the theory behind this, but hitting address #2 first or something, or infecting all even if some do not go through, or sending the failed delivery notices to the Pope or something.
Anyway, I've already followed your recommendations.
Schlongs are much nicer than worms I might add. LOL


-- Modified on 5/24/2002 5:18:30 PM

I've been hit with the Klez.H worm about 6-7 times in the last 10 days, but apparently my virus shield (AVG) protected my address book from it.  However, I'm following your suggestion nonetheless...doesn't seem like it could hurt & just might help.  Thanks RED  

Also have heard that you get put 2 forward slashes as the first entry in the address book and that will accomplish the same results.  supposedly, the puter runs into the // and has no idea what to do with it and stops there.  But then I'm not a puter type.  I'll talk to you about ships if you wish. lol

Interesting idea.  I removed all addresses from my address book, keep them in Word (no relation to Worm) and cut and paste.  I haven't been mailed a virus in, like, forever.  I think that is due to setting my Outlook Express security so that is slices off all potential viruses.  But it would be interesting to follow your suggestion also as a double check to make sure that nothing gets through despite Norton and The Strategies.

Thanks!!!

----- The following addresses had fatal errors -----
[email protected]

  ----- Transcript of session follows -----
[email protected]... Deferred: Connection reset  

Warning: message still undelivered after 4 hours
Will keep trying until message is 5 days old


....

It works except in the following scenario. If you receive an email starting with numbers or an exlamation point "!", question mark "?" or any kind or marks,  it will place itself in the address book on top above the AAAAAAA. Marks goes first, numbers second, and letters third.



-- Modified on 5/26/2002 11:01:09 AM