VICUG-L Archives

Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List

VICUG-L@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Harvey Boots <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Harvey Boots <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 26 Mar 2002 18:43:23 -0500
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (92 lines)
This is a forwarded message.


           Subject: COMPUTER TRICK
           This was in the last issue of "P C World" magazine.
Does anyone know if it really works?

Harvey Boots


           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" or "new
        person"
           just as you would do if you were adding a new friend to your list
of
        email
           addresses.

           Second: In the window where you would type your friend's FIRST
name,
        type
           in !000 (that's an exclamation mark followed by 3 zeros).  In the
        window
           below where it prompts you to enter the new email address, type
in
           WormAlert.

           Third: Then complete everything by clicking add, enter, OK, etc.

           Now, here's what you've done and why it works:  the "name" !000
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 !000, it will be
undeliverable
        because
           of the phony email address you entered (WormAlert). 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 telling you that an email
addressed
        to
           WormAlert 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 your friends.


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html


ATOM RSS1 RSS2