Spyware Warrior

[merlot_1]

I learned a computer trick today that's really ingenious in its
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 "A".



For the screen name or email address, type "AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA".



Now, here's what you've done and why it works:



The "name" "A" 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@AAA.AAA, it will be
undeliverable because of the phony email 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 email cannot be delivered, you will be notified of this in
your In Box almost immediately.
Hence, if you ever get an email telling you that an email
addressed to AAAAAAA@AAA.AAAA 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

[suzi]

Where did you find this info?

[suzi]

Well, it didn't take me long to find documentation that what you posted is a hoax, and an old one at that, dated 2001:

http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_99213.htm

[hornet777]

Yeah, I remember that one; its been that long ago? I'm getting really old.

[Angoid]

As soon as I read it, I also thought, "Nah, this cannot possibly be the case".

Worms won't care whether the email addresses in your address book are valid or not; they'll just send themselves out to all and sundry willy-nilly. Why should it wait for the first one to send and give time for a bounce? It won't!

So I'm with Suzi here also, even without having read the links to the hoax debunking sections of those AV vendors' sites.

Sorry merlot_1, I know this might come across as us "ganging-up" on you, but we're not; it's important not only to know that something is a hoax, but also why it's a hoax.

In time, after you've received a number of them, you'll get a feel for them. Some very "switched-on" friends of mine have forwarded hoaxes to me, and one was almost taken in by a pyramid saving scheme scam until two of us pointed it out to her.

Typically, I'll Google some text from the suspect message to "prove" that it's a hoax, and if so (usually the case), will reply to the sender advising them and giving links to where the hoax is debunked.

On one occasion ONLY, I used "Reply all" to reply to everyone to whom the message had been sent. This was a message that went round telling people to delete a legitimate Windows file, claiming that it was a virus. In that instance, I also linked an article for people to use in case they had followed the instructions in the "mind virus" to remove that valid Windows file.
_________________
If you don't know what eschatology is then don't worry; it's not the end of the world.

[Nick]

[hornet777]

The one I remember was SULFNBK.EXE.