DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL HERE TO THIS LIST !!!!! ------------------------------------------------ To All Subscribers: As you all know, I do NOT allow posting of Virus warnings, Trojan warnings, or "Worm" warnings on these Mailing Lists (since 99% of them are hoaxes); however, I must make an exception in this case! Before I go any farther, let me warn all of you NOT to reply to this email back to the Mailing List!!!!! There is really no reason to discuss the Trojan, as discussion won't solve anything. IF you have a question about it, please reply to me at my private email address, sgtgeorg@concentric.net and make sure that there are no List addresses in the TO: header. If there are any List addresses, they will end in "@rootsweb.com"; just delete them and type in sgtgeorg@concentric.net. Now, to the problem. A new Trojan (actually created on January 20th) entitled... HAPPY99.EXE is being rapidly spread and, many of us Listowners have already received it from subscribers who have sent us private/personal email. It is imperative you all be made aware of same, which is UNKNOWINGLY being spread as an attachment to e-mail Messages... even the sender does not realize it is being sent! I personally have received it twice, but had already been warned and did NOT execute the program. I just deleted the file from my Attachment directory. Don't worry about getting this Trojan from email on any of these Lists. RootsWeb, as you may well know, will NOT allow email with attachments to be posted to any Mailing List. Instead it sends such messages to us, the Listowners, and that is how some of us received the file. For benefit of those who don't know what a Trojan is, it's called that after the famous Trojan Horse of legend. It appears innocent and harmless, but when opened (executed or "run") it places files on your system without your knowing it. If you were to double-click on HAPPY99.EXE in Explorer, you would see a pretty little fireworks display, such as seen on New Year's Eve. After the display, the program then proceeds to put files on your system. If you receive an e-mail message from anyone with the attachment... HAPPY99.EXE ... do NOT attempt to "open" said attachment... it IS a "Trojan" or "Worm". Immediately delete the message AND the HAPPY99.EXE attachment. If you don't know where to look for the directory in which attachments are placed, just do a "FIND" from Windows and make note of the drive:\directory where any copies of HAPPY99.EXE are found. PLEASE do NOT post any follow-up message on this Mailing List; however, I encourage everyone to connect to the one of the following URLs for complete details... Symantec Anti-Virus Site - www.symantec.com/avcenter Hoax Killer Site - http://www.hoaxkill.com/ Urban Legends/Hoaxes - http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/library/blhoax.htm Happy99 - http://www.datafellows.com/v-descs/ska.htm Happy99 - http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/3652/SKA.HTM If you have already received the Trojan and run it, you should remember seeing the fireworks display. If you did that, your system is infected. It actually does no harm to the system, rather, it simply duplicates itself and attaches itself to any email you send to others; from those others, it does the same thing and spreads itself further. As I said, no harm is done to your system, but sooner or later, if it is spread all over the Internet, it could start clogging up ISPs (Internet Service Providers/Servers). It could get to the point where servers just can't handle the load of receiving and passing on maybe millions of copies of the file. By the way, its size is exactly 10,000 bytes. If you are infected, go to either of the last two URLs above. There you will find specific instructions on how to rid your system of the files created by Happy99. Just print out these instructions and follow the steps. DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL HERE TO THIS LIST !!!!! SgtGeorge George W. Durman Knoxville, TN