| STOP THE WORM I came across a great trick that's as simple as it is effective, and that anyone can use to battle many of the nasty worm viruses flying around the Internet these days. Of course, the best way to ensure the integrity of your system is to install some good anti-virus software, but this little technique can give you and anyone on your email address contact list a bit of added protection. When one of these destructive critters gets into your computer, the first thing it does is go to your email address book and send itself to all of the addresses listed there, thus infecting all your friends and contacts. The trick we're talking about won't keep the virus from getting into your computer - you should invest in some good anti-virus software for that - but it will stop the invader from using your address book to spread further, and will alert you that you have a worm in your system. Here's what to do. Open your email address book and click on "New Contact" or "New Person", just the same as you would to add a new friend to your list. In the window where you would type your New Contact's FIRST name, type !000. (That's an exclamation mark followed by 3 zeroes.). Then, in the window prompting you to enter the new email address, type the word WormAlert. Then complete your entry by clicking "Add", "Enter", "Save", etc. Here is what you've done, and why it will work. The "name" !000 will automatically be placed at the top of your address book as Entry #1. This is entry where the worm virus will start in its effort to work its way down your email contact list. But when it tries to mail itself to !000, it will find itself undeliverable because of the phony email address (i.e. WormAlert) you entered. Thus the worm's first attempt to spread from your computer will fail, and it goes no further. So you've just saved your family, friends and business contacts a possible tragedy - but what about your files and creations? Here's the second great benefit of this simple procedure. When an email cannot be delivered from your computer, you are notified in your Inbox almost immediately. Hence, if you ever get an email telling you that an email addressed to WormAlert could not be delivered, you will know right away that you have the worm in your system. In a scenario where time is often of the essence, you will be informed at the earliest moment, so that you can take the proper measures to deal with the virus. |
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