THIS MIGHT BE WORTH DOING

[Dark 46]

Subject: Fw: Address Book Protection

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

an "A".

For the screen name or email address, type "[email protected]".

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 [email protected], 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 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 [email protected] 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.

[GeordieSteve]

Can't see this working to be honest Even with the undelivered alert... most virus's use their own email engine