Here's a posting on one of my online genealogy classes about this subject. I have done this on my computer and it seems to have worked. Read to the end of the message to see how you can tell if there's been an attempt. Good luck to all, Lisa 7-12-02 copied from recent copy of P C World magazine. It works.... As you know when a worm virus gets into your computer it heads for your email address book and sends itself to everyone in there. This trick won't keep the virus from getting into your computer but it will stop it from using your address book and spreading further and it will alert you to the fact that the worm has gotten into your system. HERE IS WHAT YOU DO: First: Open your address book and click on "new contact" or new person just as you would if you were adding a new friend to your list of addresses. Second: in the window where you would type your friend's first name, type in !000 (that is an exclamation mark followed by 3 zeros). In the window below where it prompts you to enter the new email address type in "[email protected]" (actually, any .com will work). Third: then complete everything by clicking :add; enter, ok, etc. Now, here's what you've done and why it works: the "name: !000 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 !000 it will be undeliverable because of the phoney email address you entered (WormAlert). If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phoney 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 get an email telling you your message to WormAlert could not be delivered, you know right away that you have the worm virus in your system. Then you can take steps to get rid of it. If everybody you know does this, then, you needn't ever worry about opening mail from friends. Pass this on to your friends...... the Admr.