Posted by Dana on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 at 9:12AM :
I have no idea if this really would work, some of you are a lot better at computers than I will ever be, and maybe this idea has come up before. My neice forwarded this to me. Any merit in this suggestion?...
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ADDRESS BOOK:
"I learned a computer trick today that's really ingenious in its simplicity. I received it from a friend who's a computer geek.
As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into your computer it heads straight for your e-mail 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 e-mail addresses. In the window where you would type your friend's first name, type in
AAAAAAA, Also use address AAAAAAA@a.aaa
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 e-mail address you entered. 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 e-mail cannot be delivered, you will be notified of this in your IN BOX almost immediately. Hence, if you ever get an e-mail telling you that an e-mail addressed to AAAAAAA 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 need not ever worry about opening mail from friends. Pass this on to all your friends."
It's that last line that scares me a little bit; "Pass this on to all your friends."... isn't that how viruses get sent out in the first place?!?!? : )
Dana
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