how to protect your address book

[redcrbbr]

HOW TO PROTECT YOUR 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 "AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA".

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.

But, when it tries to send itself to AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA, 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 de livered, 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 AAAAAAA@AAA.AAAA 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.

Pass this on to all your friends.

[striperjerk1]

thanks red thats a great trick for viruses.

[NilsC]

This is part of "Urban Legend" and is considered a "Hoax", 99.9% of the time it will not protect you from a virus / worm see Symantec's write up or do a search on Google search for Address book hoax

I'm not trying to be a party poop, use a good virus protecting program on your computer. Update the virus definition file and make sure you run it!

Nils

[Newboater]

That proceedure USED to work a while back. The spammer could not get your addresses at all.

NOW its a different story. Since it became common knowledge on the internet about THAT FIX. The spammers and email collectors have long learned how to bypass it.

You can protect yourself with Anti-Virus programs and there are a lot of them out there. But the best protection is YOU.

A virus CANNOT AFFECT your computer unless YOU LET IT. If you open a file attachment without knowing what it is YOU are the VIRUS SPREADER.

Here's a trick for you to fully identify files coming in to you.

Fact: Microsoft has a setting so YOU as the OWNER of your computer will NEVER see a system file because Microsoft thinks you're TOO DUMB to be informed of it.

Viruses cannot hurt you unless they are activated. To activate them you have to CLICK on them. Executable files ( files that are programs that RUN ) are specifically identified to you as .exe or .bat or .com or .vsb or .dll or .sys --- SO --- Microsoft has a setting in your computer that HIDES these file identifiers so YOU can't MESS with them. Gee thanks.

So a hacker out there knowing this rule about HIDING KNOWN EXTENDERS ( the 3 little letters etc AFTER the name and period ) that Microsoft built in and SET FOR YOU just makes up a file and disguises the name.

Lets say I want to send you the bluefish virus which has an executable file called bluefish.bat ( .bat is an executable file ). I would just name the file bluefish.jpg.bat which would show up on your computer as bluefish.jpg ( Microsoft HIDES KNOWN EXTENDERS, (the .bat part of that) and just show you the file was bluefish.jpg ( picture file extender ) which Microsoft doesn't recognize.

Wow - I just made you click on bluefish.jpg.bat and run the virus.

So - Double click ( DC ) MY COMPUTER
DC Local C: drive
Click on ANY folder once to make it Hi-Lighted
Click Tools ( the line with File - Edit - View etc )
Click Folder Options
Click VIEW
Put a check mark IN Show Hidden Files & Folders
Take check mark OUT of Hide File Extenders for known file types.
Your choice of leaving or taking out the check mark for Hide Protected Operating System Files. ( If you know what they are you can look at them, if not - HIDE THEM )

This way that same file bluefish.jpg.bat will now be shown to you in an email attachment because you now WANT TO SEE KNOWN extenders and the .bat is a KNOWN extender.

Microsoft would HIDE that known extender.

Hope that makes it clear to you by me putting in all the points involved so you can understand the steps and processes.

Sarge

[Raven]

it doesnt take that long to open a seperate text file and copy and paste a recipients address to the to: box

then the address book has no addresses in it for viruses to spread to