) ( ( ) Good Morning Family! ( \ .-.,--^--. ( Come on in. . . \* ) \\|`----'| - The coffee pot's on. . . .=|=. \| |// ...and we even have decaf, |~'~| | |/ tea, and hot chocolate! | | \ / _|___|_ ------ (_______) Today's topics include: 1. Welcome to new cousins 2. The dark side of e-mail: viruses TO OUR NEWEST COUSINS ~~ On behalf of the entire 4H family, I'd like to extend a most hearty welcome to those cousins who came into the family fold this past week. We are very glad to have you with us and hope you'll stay and remain a part of our online family. As soon as you're comfortable with us and the list, please send in your Howell lines so we can all see how we're related to you. We do not have a fancy format for sending in records or queries to the list. Post as many as you wish! If the data has anything to do with Howell ancestors or any of the 9 variant spellings we research that might help someone, please feel free to post it. Every scrap of information is appreciated. You have joined not just a list, but a family of cousins who are four teams of researchers combined into one family, the 4H. Although we are one family, we have two homesites and if you haven't visited these sites yet, you are encouraged to do so ~ Home for the HOWELL-L, HOWELLS-SOUTHERN-L, and HOWLE-L is the Howell Research Room (otherwise known as the HRR) which opened May 28th. You'll find it located at <http://howellresearch.com>. While not large in size yet, this site is to become a clearinghouse dedicated to global research of the Howell[s] surname and all her variant spellings. You're invited to submit material for display at the HRR. Simply let me know you want to house material there and what it is. We can display anything, provided it doesn't involve living persons. Contact me at <[email protected]>. Home for the HOWELL-SURNAME-L is the Edward Howell Family Association site at <http://www.ehfa.org>. This is a site dedicated to descendants of Edward Howell of Southampton, Long Island, New York. There you'll find an online transcription of "Descendants of Edward Howell (1584-1655) of Westbury Manor, Marsh Gibbon, Buckinghamshire, [England], and Southampton, Long Island, New York," Second Edition by Dr. David Faris. Web mistress for the EHFA site is Kristen Howell <[email protected]>. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the fourth in a series of Coffees dedicated to showing our newbies the "cyberspace ropes" and those novices who might still need the lessons. Today's subject might be rather unnerving. However, remembering what you learn here AND furthering this knowledge with additional reading will give your machine the protection it needs and the peace of mind you should have while online. THE DARK SIDE OF E-MAIL: VIRUSES You receive a message from from your best friend. "Oh, happiness!" The weird thing about this message though, is your friend's email address starts with an underscore _ instead of a letter like most people's does. Oh well, you know it's from your best friend... You receive a message with an attachment. It looks innocent enough. You don't know why there's a double extension [.zip.scr ~ or something close to this], but other than that, well... It DOES say "Take a look to the attachement," (their spelling, not mine) after all. What could be so harmful? Nobody you know would ever consider sending YOU a virus-laden attachment! Or so you thought. Your mother, as much as she loves you; your best friend, as much as you mean the world to him/her; that list member, as knowledgeable as s/he is ... One of them sent you a message with a virus in it, and you opened it. None of them even knew their computer was infected, but you do... now. And how do you know that your computer is infected? Because someone received a virus-laden message from YOUR computer and sent a message to you telling you about it. You didn't even know your computer was infected, but it is. You didn't even know your computer was sending out messages; but it was. WONDERFUL! SIMPLY WONDERFUL! It's at this point you might like to know that some people have had to pay over $300 to get their computers repaired and working correctly again ~ the result of one of three groups of nasty computer ills guaranteed to play havoc with your computer and sometimes, your wallet! Newbies ... welcome to the world of computing ... and its dark side. There are three nasties just lying in wait for you and your computer. They are: ** the virus: a program that requires a host in order to make copies of itself on computers. The ability to self-replicate distinguishes viruses from programs that do not, and this parasitic nature is neither an accident, nor a computer glitch. Viruses often contain 'payloads' (actions that the virus carries out in addition to replication), may infect (copy to, and spread from) program files, programs in disk sectors, and files that use macros. These programs range from the annoying (one virus displays messages such as "I think 'username' is a stupid jerk"), to disastrous ~ causing some of your systems files to be overwritten, or flat-out destroying your hard drive. ** the Trojan horse program: like the giant wooden horse that concealed Greek soldiers who used it to invade the ancient city of Troy, a Trojan conceals hidden programming. The hidden function may just be a joke, or something annoying, but vandals often use these programs to destroy other people's data, knowing that some people will run any program that has an interesting file name, or promises to perform a useful function. ** the worm program: similar to a virus; it is considered by some to be a subset of a virus in that it makes copies of itself but does so without needing to modify your computer. Like viruses, worms may (or may not) do things other than replicate. So that I don't have to keep repeating "virus, Trojan and worm," for the rest of this Coffee everything will be called a virus ... Viruses are written by amateur programmers who count on people's curiosity getting the best of them ("I wonder what's inside?" [the attachment]). Their messages use techniques that take advantage of people's social habits and expectations to lure and trick them into opening attachments or visiting harmful Web pages. These viruses are uninvited programs that run on your computer usually unbeknownst to you and vary widely in their effects. They can be hidden in programs available on floppy disks or CDs, hidden in email attachments or in material downloaded from the web. If the virus has no obvious payload, a user might not even be aware that a computer is infected. As part of a virus's payload a message might appear, you could have strange video effects, or even music can play. Some effects are so mild that you might not notice them. Viruses with more devastating consequences do exist, sometimes causing damage to your other computer files. One deletes the contents of your C: drive straight away. It just depends on which of the three you're dealing with AND to which type of that particular nasty you're having to contend. Many viruses secretly copy themselves to files in your hard drive or diskettes and in that way propagate themselves as you share files with other computer users. The most common way of your computer becoming infected is by opening and running unknown email attachments. Your #1 rule regarding attachments therefore, should be: NEVER open an attachment until ** you have verified with the person sending it to you 1.) that s/he in fact, did send it and 2.) exactly what the attachment is and what it does, OR ** you have saved the attachment to a floppy disk and then checked the file for viruses To make online life really ugly, where once email viruses were spread only by opening attachments, they are now spreading WITHOUT THE USER OPENING ANY ATTACHMENT. About two years ago a major hole was discovered in Microsoft's Internet Explorer code. The hole allows malicious scripts to run from within html pages which can come from web sites or within email. When malicious code comes in email, the receiver does not have to open any attachment to "catch the virus." It is transmitted as soon as the html-enabled email reader displays the message. I need to inject here ... rest assured you absolutely CANNOT get a virus-laden message through a Rootsweb email list. RootsWeb's mailing lists are filtered and attachments are removed. A virus that is distributed as an attachment will not reach you through a RootsWeb mailing list. Should you ever receive a virus-laden message with a Rootsweb [LISTNAME] in the subject line, you can bet it came from a member of your list, but BEHIND the scenes, not directly through the list itself. Tender newbie, after everything I've just told you, below is **THE** most important guide of the Web that anyone can teach you. Without knowing this, you can't even *exist* on the Web and hope to keep your computer safe ~ whether you're a computer genealogist or just a surfer. There is only ONE defense against these virus attacks ~ a good anti-virus program installed into your computer right away. Don't wait till tomorrow or next week, unless you don't plan to receive any email or go on the Web. It's that simple. Below are three of the more popular anti-virus programs. Norton and McAfee have free trial versions that run for 30 days. AVG is free. All are excellent programs. Norton Antivirus <http://www.symantec.com/region/es/>. McAfee Virus Scan 4.0 <http://download.mcafee.com>. AVG Antivirus <http://www.grisoft.com> Once you have an anti-virus program installed on your computer, be sure to update it at least once a week. The viruses are changing so often and coming upon us so quickly that if you don't keep your protection current, your computer can still get infected. This is by no means the end of the subject of viruses, however, it is here that I must end. The constraint of byte allocation for today's Coffee prohibits me from going further. However, I hope I have given you a good overview of this particular subject. For more information, a terrific source is <http://csrc.nist.gov/virus> where they have links to other virus resources and a listing of anti-virus program vendors. If you're curious or concerned right now, you can go to <http://housecall.antivirus.com/pc_housecall/> and receive an online check of your computer. Newbie, protecting your computer means you're also protecting OURS. If your computer doesn't "get sick," then ours certainly won't either. It's family ... and that's what we're all about. To you February babies - the cousins and I wish you a very happy and exciting year ahead. Happy Birthday! You are loved! I so enjoyed spending this time with you today. Thank you for sharing it with me. I wish each of you a week filled with health, productivity, fun, and above all, filled with love and inner peace. ) ( ) _.-~~-. (@\'--'/. Colleen ('``.__.'`) `..____.'