easy virus stopper

[fishbait]

Here is a easy trick. NOte: not a subistute for virus scanning software.

First make a new entry into your e-mail address book. For the name put !000 . This will ensure that it will be the absolute first address in you address book.

Second, for the e-mail address put WormAlert

if you get infected, the worm will try to send to all your addresses starting with the first one. The first one will fail stopping it there and you will then get a message failure delivery notice with worm alert as the address so you will know you have a problem.

This is so simple, I wish I could take credit for it. It's not my idea, but it works.

[Cool Texan]

Here's some better methods:

Dont open random attachments that end in VBL, EXE, etc unless you KNOW who it is from.

If its from a friend, but the email is written in a strange manner, ie, "Hi, I send this to for your review", or "Hey, here's naked pictures of my wife, I cant believe she went for this!"...dont open in.

Common sense is free and goes a LONG way.

[OR Coast Range]

While we are on the topics of stopping virii, the best solution would be to wipe your hard drive of everything Microsoft has ever made and install Linux.

[fishbait]

My Web server hosts all the home pages for my business and also is my e-mail server. It runs Lynux and has been up and running for about 480 days without even a hickup. Nuff said........

[SailCat]

Steve-

The new virii are getting too clever for the Email trick.

The last version that I received was from a fellow who'd written to me several times previously. The subject was 'Re: Newport/Waldport'. Pretty innocent, huh?

Since folks write to me with questions about various locations weekly and I know this guy, I opened it. Fortunately, I knew better than to open the attached .pif file.

That one was BadtransII, which replies to old Emails in Outlook Express. Go figure. If a computer gets this bug, not only does it send the user's passwords to a third party, it also logs every keystroke, sending that information periodically.

The latest bug, Goner, is s'posed to be worse ....

Go figure,too, that the script kiddies who are bright enough to write this stuff waste their time creating evil software to hurt others.

Word up is that it'll get worse. Be careful online.

~MT