Thought I would share this great idea with all of you:
As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into your computer it heads straight for your e-mail 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 e-mail 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 e-mail address, type in Worm@Alert. The message "The e-mail address you have entered is not a valid e-mail address. Do you still want to add this address" Click "yes". Then complete everything by clicking add, enter, ok, 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 e-mail address you entered (Worm@Alert). 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 e-mail cannot be delivered, you will be notified of this in your In Box almost immediately. Hence, if you ever get an e-mail telling you that an e-mail addressed to Worm@Alert 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!
Hope this helps!!
As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into your computer it heads straight for your e-mail 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 e-mail 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 e-mail address, type in Worm@Alert. The message "The e-mail address you have entered is not a valid e-mail address. Do you still want to add this address" Click "yes". Then complete everything by clicking add, enter, ok, 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 e-mail address you entered (Worm@Alert). 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 e-mail cannot be delivered, you will be notified of this in your In Box almost immediately. Hence, if you ever get an e-mail telling you that an e-mail addressed to Worm@Alert 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!
Hope this helps!!