From Langalist (of 10/1/01)
“An amazing number of readers have written to
ask if the following is
true:
To avoid spreading computer viruses, create a contact
in your
email address book
with the name !0000 (or similar) with no
email address in the
details. This contact will then show up
as your first contact
in your book. If a virus attempts to do
a "send
all" on your contact list, your PC will put up an
error message saying
that "The Message could not be sent. One
or more recipients do
not have an e-mail address. Please check
your Address Book and
make sure all the recipients have a
valid e-mail
address." You click on OK and the offending
(virus) message would
not have been sent to anyone. Of course
no changes have been
made to your original contacts list. The
offending (virus)
message may then be automatically stored in
your
"Drafts" or "Outbox" folder. Go in there and delete the
offending message.
Problem is solved and virus is not spread.
I wasn't going to cover
this widely-circulated "tip" because it's so
easy to check for
yourself: Just try it: Add the fake name, but enter
no corresponding email address. Many email clients
will allow you to do
this, and indeed will complain when you--- or a virus
or worm--- try to
send email to that bogus name.
The other reason I avoided presenting this tip is
because it only worksif your
online defenses have already failed: Yes, it may help
prevent a virus from
spreading from your machine, but by the time this
trick works, your PC is
already infected. It's far, far better to prevent such
infections in the first
place. Then, not only will your system not infect
others, but *you* won't be
infected either.
So add a fake
"!0000" (or "AAAAAA" or whatever) name to your address book if you
wish, but please realize that this does absolutely
nothing to prevent you from
being infected in the first place, and so is of
limited utility, at best.”