Please Please Read the following message all the way thru. I received it from one of my surname Rootsweb lists. You could received this "worm" or virus from any source, so always becareful of any email you received that has attachments. I received such a "worm" attachment recently from one of our new Lowndes subscribers and they didn't even realize that they had the "infection" on their computer. Please do not reply to this message on the email list! Clare Herrick, ListOwner Lowndes County ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date forwarded: Sat, 12 May 2001 08:01:23 -0700 From: "Richard Leon Herrick" <RLHerrick@prodigy.net> Date sent: Sat, 12 May 2001 11:03:13 -0400 Subject: [HERRICK-L] Dangerous false replies to postings. To: HERRICK-L@rootsweb.com Forwarded by: HERRICK-L@rootsweb.com Send reply to: HERRICK-L@rootsweb.com Subscribers: Please do not reply on the list to this message! This is a warning concerning incoming messages that may appear to have come from a RootsWeb mail list, when it was probably generated by a virus on someone else's computer. Other RootsWeb list administrators have posted notices similar to this on their lists. This is not a hoax so please do not delete it until you have read it. I received a reply to a reply that I made to a post on another RootsWeb mail list. The reply was cleverly disguised to appear that it came from that specific RootsWeb mail list that I had sent a reply to a post made thereon. The reply from a second party that I do not know quoted part of my reply to the third person who had posted the original query. This bogus reply ended with this statement as the last line: " Take a look to the attachment. " As soon as it began to download Norton Anti-Virus, NAV, flashed a warning on the monitor screen advising that it was placing said message and its attachment in quarantine. I was advised to not open it, so I did not. The attachment was: " readme.txt.pif " NAV is set to scan all incoming e-mail messages and attachments to same. NAV saved me from a problem. I e-mailed the 'sender' and told her what happened and advised her that she might have a virus or a worm on her machine. The name of the sender of this message was not the person who made the original post that I had replied to. She is very likely an innocent party who does not know what her computer is trying to do to other innocent parties. If you do not have an Anti-Virus program on your computer that is actively scanning e-mail as it comes in, it is recommended that you acquire an anti-virus program that has such a feature and keep it active as soon as you boot the computer each time that you turn the PC on. If you receive a message that appears to be a reply from a RootsWeb mail list from someone you do not know, that has an attachment with a <.txt.pif> extension, DO NOT OPEN IT!! In my case, described above, the sender of the message with the Virus laden attachment was not the person that I had replied to originally. Please do not reply to this message on the list! Richard Leon Herrick List Administrator