I have heard others talk about this. Sounds like it would work.
John Tolmachoff IT Manager Network Engineer 211 E. Imperial Hwy., Suite 106 Fullerton, CA� 92835 714-578-7999, ext. 104 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.reliancesoft.com � -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Alan Shepro Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 6:16 AM To: Imail Forum Subject: [IMail Forum] OT - Is there any validity to this I received this email the other day and was wondering if there is any validity to this. The concept seems plausable but I want some second opinions. Thanks, Alan --------------- 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 !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." Then complete everything by clicking add, enter, okay, 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 In Box 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 all your friends that don't appear on the list I sent to in this mailing (Mutual friends) I suspect they will eventually find a way around this too. Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/
