Address book protection?

[Warren Fisher]

Hi guys & gals,
I'm back from my thoroughly disgusting vacation and ready to shoot bulls
again. Any takers?

Warren

Morris Heinzen wrote:

>
>
> Trick your email program's address book!
>
> Who among us doesn't know someone who has experienced the embarrassment
> of unknowingly spreading a computer worm via their email address book?
>
> You can STOP this from happening to you by TAKING CONTROL of your
> email program. For those of you who are unaware, many computer worms
> spread themselves by sending themselves to everyone in your email
> program's address book. Imagine how you would feel if you unknowingly
> infected others with a computer worm. Or if your friends, family, and
> business contacts were being targeted by your computer.
>
> Here is a great way to avoid something like that from happening. It
> won't prevent You from getting any computer worms or viruses (you need
> to keep your anti-virus software kept up-to-date and have it
> automatically scan email
> attachments to help prevent YOUR system from being infected), but this
> will stop computer worms from latching onto your address book and
> sending copies of themselves out to others.
>
> To avoid spreading computer worms, create a contact in your email
> address book like this.  For the name, enter !000 (that's an exlamation
> mark followed by 3 zeros). In the window below where it prompts you to
> enter the new email address, type in WormAlert. (If it tells you this is
>
> not a valid address just say yes to add it, or ok). 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 in your system. You can then take steps to get
> rid of it!

--
Warren Fisher RPT                   Beginners & Lurkers
fish@Communique.net                 Basic Pianotech discussed
1422 Briarwood Dr.                  Ask any question.
Slidell, LA 70458-3102              fish@gs.verio.net