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How to Stop a Virus Before it Spreads

Babbles

2nd Level Orange Feather
Joined
Feb 27, 2002
Messages
2,277
Points
36
I was sent this, can't say I came up with it.
Sounds like it should work - and it should notify you if so:
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How to protect your e-mail address book


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 [email protected]



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.


When it tries to send itself to [email protected],

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 [email protected] 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.
DO IT NOW and pass this on to all your friends.

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
 
I've been using that trick for several years now. It really does work to alert oneself to any problem that needs to be dealt with.
 
That's a really cool idea! I'll have to remember that.

On the same vein, I was reading today about virus containment. Apparently some people who study viruses intentionally install them in a Linux environment in WINE, so the virus is contained in a little box. It's like a virtual petri dish.
 
You're welcome, thank you (all) for the confirmations and additional information 🙂

(I was worried someone was going to write they'd tried it & it'd backfired horribly... :scared: 😛 )
Though seriously, I don't see how it could... :ermm:
 
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