Protect your address book

I thought the following was worth trying and that you might be interested.<br /><br />I learned a computer trick today that's really ingenious in its simplicity.<br />Don't know if it will work, but it won't hurt. <br /><br />As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into your computer it heads<br />straight for your e-mail address book, and sends itself to everyone in <br />there, thus infecting all your friends and associates. This trick <br />won't keep the virus from getting into your computer, but it will stop<br />it from using your address book to spread further, and it will alert you<br />to the fact that the worm has gotten into your system. <br /><br />Here's what you do: first, open your address book and click on<br />"new contact," just as you would do if you were adding a new friend <br />to your list of e-mail addresses. <br /><br />In the window where you would type your friend's first name, <br />Type in AAAAAAA. Also use address AAAAAAA@a.aaa <br /><br />Now. Here's what you've done and why it works: <br />Maybe<br />The name AAAAAAA will be placed at the top of your address book <br />as entry #1. This will be where the worm will start in an effort to <br />send itself to all your friends. But, when it tries to send itself to<br />AAAAAAA, it will be undeliverable because of the phony e-mail <br />address you entered. <br /><br />If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phony address),<br />the worm goes no further and your friends will not be infected. <br /><br />Here's the second great advantage of this method: <br />If an E-mail cannot be delivered, you will be notified of this in your <br />In Box almost immediately. Hence, if you ever get an e-mail telling <br />you that an e-mail addressed to AAAAAAA could not be delivered, <br />you know right away that you have the worm virus in your system. <br />You can then take steps to get rid of it! <br /><br />If everybody you know does this then you need not ever worry about <br />opening mail from friends.

Re: Protect your address book

Thanks alot SBN!

Re: Protect your address book

how or where didja come across this neato trick SBN ??????????<br />makes sence to me though

Re: Protect your address book

Sounds good to me, and harmless. If it doesn't stop the worm, you will at least be notified. Thanks Spinner.

Re: Protect your address book

Yes, I got an email regarding this same procedure<br />some time ago. So far no problems.

Re: Protect your address book

Hmmm...Berrry Interesting, Think I'll try it. Guess I should say Aaah, instead of hmmm.

Re: Protect your address book

SBN,<br />You said: "If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phony address),<br />the worm goes no further and your friends will not be infected. <br /><br />Actually, the mail Will be sent to all persons in your address book, BUT you'll get a blurb from your mail server that the 'phoney' mail addy could not be delivered. This is your tip off that you do have a problem.<br /><br />The phoney address you create could be YouveGotAWorm@checkitout.com as a reminder.<br /><br />Did you know that in your address book, you can have one or more entries always at the top of the list, regardless of their name? Simple, put a period (.) at the beginning of their name (not the actual email address). <br /><br />Example:<br /><br />.John Smith johnsmith@epox.com<br />The period at the beginning of his entry in the address book puts him at the top of the list.....<br /><br />Another tip:<br /><br />If you run a soft fire wall program like ZoneAlarm, put a filter on Outlook Express (in ZoneAlarm) so that Outlook can only use a couple of ports to do it's job of sending and receiving mail. Usually the ports to allow are TCP 25, TCP 110, TCP 143 ONLY. Why only these ports?? These are the most common ports Outlook/ISP uses. If you receive spam mail, when you read that spam, it calls home( using Outlook on another port) to report that 'there's a live IP address at you're address, and you'll start getting MORE spam!. By limiting Outlook to only be able to 'talk' to your mail server, the spam-phone-home notification never gets out of your machine.

Re: Protect your address book

Now it's my turn to say, HUH?<br /><br />I don't worry about it to much cause I keep my Norton updated daily and always on. Internet and email, in and out.<br /><br />Also the latest worm just effected xp users mostly.<br /><br />Did not get me.

Re: Protect your address book

Ha! Hey, not to worry...just keep those Norton Virus Def's up to date and you should be just fine.

Re: Protect your address book

Yea, I have been for the last 3 years since I got this thing.<br />Don't ever remember getting one.<br /><br />Man can't wait till the 30th. so I can get my cable.

Re: Protect your address book

This doesn't work on all worms and in fact any worm with it's own SMTP engine (which is most) can easily filter that out, any message that comes back to you will *not* appear in your inbox until the program polls the mail server for mail.<br /><br />The damage will already have been done. The only protection is to be very careful, or dump Windoze.

Re: Protect your address book

!00000 also works. It'll be at the top of your address list.

Re: Protect your address book

Well, I kinda started this out as a little humor, and it has got just a little away from that.<br /><br />Like I said, I have not had a worm of anykind, so keep your stuff protected good and you will be ok.<br /><br />I'm done.