Viruses do not reside in your email address book or in your email account. The viruses reside on your hard drive. They are a resident in the operating system you use. I use Windows XP, because I use my computer professionally and want many advanced features. No matter the type of operating system you use, if you have a virus in your machine, YOU CANNOT DECEIVE THE VIRUS IN GOING AWAY!!!!!! You must use a software program to find the virus, fix, eliminate or quarantine the virus. If you have a virus, you need to spend the money to get a antiviral program. You can get some free ones online, but they are much inferior to commercial versions and the store bought ones have free virus updates for a period of time. When you think about the amount of money you have spent on your computer and the fact if your computer is infected, you are sending out tons of grief to all you mail, the price seems reasonable. I recommend NORTON'S INTERNET SECURITY, be sure to get that! product title. Seems to me the cost is around $65 bucks. Watch for a rebate. This easy to use program will scan you computer, FIND your virus and get your machine cleaned out. I know of no other way to clean a machine out. A number of viruses operate differently, many will destroy ALL the data on your hard drive. I suggest buying a antiviral program today. Sorry for the demanding advice, remember viruses are electronic terrorism. I recommend you do this before you change your browser or email account. The virus is INSIDE your computer. The browser and email information is delivered from OUTSIDE your computer. Please forgive me if I have offended anyone, that is not my intention. Gary Judy, you need a new computer guy. A worm/virus will not wait to see if it has a valid email id to send to, it just sends out to every entry in your address book. You'll know it happened by receiving the undeliverable message as you described, but the horses will be out of the barn. If you don't want the expense of anti-virus software, use Netscape as your browser and email program. Worms are written to target Internet Explorer and Outlook. MCG ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pat" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 10:11 AM Subject: [AGS] Fw: How to Protect Your Address Book > FW: How to Protect Your Address Book > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Judy > To: undisclosed-recipients: > Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 2:49 PM > Subject: FW: How to Protect Your Address Book > > > Sounds like a good idea. Judy > > > I checked this out with my "computer guy". He said it is valid but he uses ooooo. > > HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ADDRESS BOOK! > > I learned a computer trick today that's really ingenious in it's 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 AAAAAAA. > > Now, here's whatyou've done and why it works: the "name" AAAAAAA 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, 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 inbox almost immediately. Hence, if you ever get an email spelling you that an email addressed to A > could not be delivered, you know right away that you have the worm virus in your system. You can 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. > > > > > > > ==== AGS Mailing List ==== > The Arkansas History Commission has updated their website. > www.ark-ives.com > >