The GONER virus is truly evil. Kate's advice about creating an illegal address sounds like a fine idea, as far as preventing spread of an email worm to others, once you become infected. This would not however prevent mayhem onyour own computer. This GONER worm tries to delete a long list of important system files, probably disabling your computer. Another virus, last year, deleted all JPG files.
So, better yet : prevent infection! (Not a plug! ) An effective virus protection program such as Mcafee or Norton will run you $30 (plus reupping for DAT file renewals every couple of years. Once you have a legal copy of one of these programs, you can set up a regular update schedule to protect yourself as new viruses appear. At the Museum we update our mail server's protection every day, and sometimes that's even insufficient. Short of that, don't open attachments that you weren't expecting, even from known correspondents. ESPECIALLY do not open attachments with the file extensions .EXE, .VBS, .SCR and .AF. which are incredibly likely to be worms and viruses. Chuck Eisenhardt, wearing the hat of Director of Information Systems, The Children's Museum, Boston
